SATIRE  IN  THE  VICTORIAN  NOVEL 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

OTW  YORK  •   BOSTON  •   CHICAGO  •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •  BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


SATIRE  IN  THE  VICTORIAN 
NOVEL 


BY 
FRANCES  THERESA   RUSSELL,    PH.D. 

ASSISTANT    PROFESSOR    OF    ENGLISH,    STANFORD    UNIVERSITY 


SUBMITTED  IN  PARTIAL  FULFILL- 
MENT OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 
THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHI- 
LOSOPHY IN  THE  FACULTY  OF  PHI- 
LOSOPHY, COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


gtorfc 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1920 

All  rights  rctervcd 


ftp, 


COPYRIGHT,  1920, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1920. 


VIRO  DOCTISSIMO 

DAVID  STARR  JORDAN 

ET 
DIS  MANIBUS 

GUILELMI  JAMES 

SACRUM 

QUI  MIHI  TEMPORE  MEO  GRAVISSIMO,  NOVA  SUPPEDITANTES 
OFFICIA  NOVAM  VITJE  SEMITAM  MONSTRAVERUNT 


412802 


PREFACE 

If  the  following  monograph  were  to  be  presented  from 
the  point  of  view  of  a  proponent,  the  author  would  be 
put  triply  on  the  defensive  in  relation  to  the  theme.  For, 
from  one  cause  or  another,  the  trio  of  terms  in  the  title  lies 
under  a  certain  blight  of  critical  opinion. 

Satire,  being  a  thistle  "  pricked  from  the  thorny  branches 
of  reproof,"  cannot  expect  to  be  cherished  in  the  sensitive 
human  bosom  with  the  welcome  accorded  to  the  fair 
daffodil  or  the  sweet  violet.  It  must  be  content  to  be 
admired,  if  at  all,  from  a  safe  distance,  with  the  cold  eye 
of  intellectual  appraisal. 

Victorianism  has  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  pe- 
riod in  literature  whose  very  name  savors  of  the  byword 
and  the  reproach.  To  be  an  Elizabethan  is  to  be  envied 
for  the  gift  of  youthful  exuberance  and  an  exquisite  joy 
in  life.  To  be  a  Queen  Annian  (if  the  phrase  may  be 
adapted)  is  to  be  respected  for  the  accomplishments  of 
mature  manhood, — a  dignified  mem,  ripened  judgment, 
and  polished  wit.  To  be  a  Victorian — that  indeed  pro- 
vokes the  question  whether  'twere  better  to  be  or  not  to 
be.  The  chronological  analogy  cannot,  however,  be  car- 
ried out,  for  the  Victorian,  whatever  the  cause  of  his 
unfortunate  reputation,  can  hardly  be  accused  of  senility. 
On  the  contrary,  the  impression  prevails  that  the  startled 
ingenuousness,  for  instance,  with  which  he  opened  his 
eyes  at  Darwin,  Ibsen,  and  the  iconoclasts  in  Higher  Crit- 
icism; the  vehemence  with  which  he  opposed  and  refuted 
and  fulminated  against  everything  hitherto  undreampt 


Vll 


Vlll  PREFACE 

of  in  his  philosophy;  the  complacency  with  which  he 
viewed  himself  and  his  achievements,  were  attributes 
more  appropriate  to  adolescence  than  to  any  later  time  ot 
life.  Withal  there  was  little  of  the  grace  and  gayety  of 
youth,  and  not  much  more  of  the  poise  and  humor  of 
manhood.  That  the  Victorian  was  never  at  ease,  in  Zion 
or  elsewhere,  that  he  was  prone  to  take  himself  and  his 
disjointed  times  very  seriously,  without  achieving  a  pro- 
portionate reformation,  is  a  charge  from  which  he  never 
can  be  acquitted.  To  our  modern  authorities,  especially 
such  dictators  as  Shaw  and  Wells,  contemplating  him 
from  the  vantage  ground  of  a  higher  rung  in  the  ladder 
of  civilization,  the  Victorian  looks  as  Wordsworth  did 
to  Lady  Blandish,  like  "a  very  superior  donkey,"  pro- 
tected by  the  side-blinders  of  conventionality,  saddled 
and  bridled  by  authority,  and  ridden  around  in  a  circle 
by  sentiment  (most  tyrannical  of  drivers),  with  much 
cracking  of  whip  and  raising  of  dust,  but  no  real  change  of 
intellectual  or  spiritual  locality.  Nor  can  all  the  cavort- 
ing fun  of  Dickens,  all  the  pungent  playfulness  of  Thack- 
eray, all  the  sardonic  gibes  of  Carlyle,  all  the  grotesque 
gesturing  of  Browning,  all  the  winged  irony  of  George 
Eliot  and  Matthew  Arnold,  not  even  all  the  quips  and 
cranks  in  Punch  itself,  avail  to  quash  the  indictment. 
The  Victorian  may  be  defended,  appreciated,  exonerated 
even;  he  may  in  time  succeed  in  living  it  down.  But  to 
live  it  down  is  not  quite  the  same  as  to  have  had  nothing 
that  had  to  be  lived  down. 

The  Novel  has  been  called  the  Cinderella  of  Literature. 
And  it  is  true  that  while  she  may  be  useful,  indispensable, 
a  secret  favorite  of  the  whole  family,  no  magic  wand  can 
give  her  the  real  enchantment  of  a  caste  that  survives 
the  stroke  of  twelve.  She  may  act  as  the  drudge  to 


PREFACE  IX 

fetch  and  carry  our  theories,  or  the  playmate  to  amuse 
our  idle  hours,  but  she  must  be  kept  in  her  place,  and 
her  place  is  with  neither  the  esthetic  aristocracy  of  poetry 
nor  the  didactic  patricianism  of  philosophy  and  criticism. 
She  has,  indeed,  recently  been  fitted  with  a  golden  slipper, 
but  her  Prince  hails  from  the  Kingdom  of  Dollars,  and 
his  rank  is  recorded  in  Bradstreet  instead  of  the  Peerage. 

The  indifferent  or  repellent  nature  of  a  subject,  even 
though  triple  distilled,  has  nothing  to  do,  however,  with 
its  value  as  a  topic  for  investigation.  I  present  this  study 
neither  as  apologist  nor  enthusiast.  If  we  expand  Brown- 
ing's "development  of  a  soul"  to  include  the  mental  as 
well  as  the  spiritual  stages,  as  the  poet  himself  did  in 
actual  practice,  we  must  agree  with  him  that  "little  else 
is  worth  study."  So  persistent  and  insistent  in  the  mind 
of  man  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  satiric  mood,  so  devoted 
has  he  been  from  immemorial  ages  to  the  habit  of  story- 
telling (and  seldom  for  the  mere  sake  of  the  story),  so 
voluminous  and  emphatic  did  he  become  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  that  no  complete  account  of  him  can  be 
rendered  up  until,  amid  the  infinite  variety  of  his  aspects, 
he  has  been  viewed  as  a  Victorian  satirist,  using  as  his 
medium  the  English  novel. 

Whatever  the  result  of  this  observation  may  be,  the 
process  has  been  one  of  continual  delight,  tempered  by 
despair;  for  one  enters  as  it  were  a  room  of  tremendous 
size  not  only  full  of  curious  and  challenging  objects  (over- 
furnished  perhaps),  but  supplied  also  with  numerous  doors 
opening  into  other  apartments,  and  these  ask  an  amount 
of  time  and  attention  which  only  the  span  of  a  Methuse- 
lah could  place  at  one's  disposal. 

It  must  be  admitted,  though,  that  it  is  a  happier  lot 
to  stand  before  open  doors,  even  in  dismay  at  the  illimi- 


X  PREFACE 

table  vistas,  than  to  confront  closed  doors  or  none  at  all. 
And  I  wish  in  this  connection  to  offer  my  tribute  of  ap- 
preciation and  admiration  to  one  who  has  preeminently 
the  scholar's  talisman  of  Open  Sesame  into  the  many  and 
rich  realms  of  literature.  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  pre- 
pare this  study  under  the  direction  of  Professor  Ashley  H. 
Thorndike,  of  Columbia  University,  by  whose  benignly 
severe  criticism  so  many  students  have  profited,  by  whose 
sure  taste  and  searching  wisdom  so  many  have  been 
guided.  To  him,  to  his  colleagues  in  the  English  Depart- 
ment, and  to  the  other  officers  of  the  University  who 
helped  to  make  my  term  of  residence  the  satisfaction  it 
has  been,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  express  my  gratitude.  To 
my  Stanford  colleague,  Miss  Elisabeth  Lee  Buckingham, 
I  am  indebted  for  the  drudgery  of  copy-reading,  both  in 
manuscript  and  in  proof,  and  for  many  valuable  sug- 
gestions. 

F.  T.  R. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
PREMISES 
CHAPTER  I 

THE   SATIRIC   SPIRIT 

PAGE 

Various  interpretations  because  of  various  manifestations.  Chief  con- 
stituents, criticism  and  humor.  Relation  of  these  in  the  formula.  Testi- 
mony of  satirists  as  to  the  presence  of  humor,  criticism  being  taken  for 
granted.  The  satiric  motive;  temperamental  cause  and  ethical  intent. 
Testimony  as  to  both.  Symposium  on  the  discrepancy  between  prospectus 
and  performance.  The  realizable  ideal.  Objects:  empiric  data  on  vice, 
folly,  and  deception.  Reason  for  universal  criticism  and  ridicule  of  decep- 
tion. Criteria  of  good  satire.  Difficulties,  limitations,  and  real  function I 

CHAPTER  II 

THE   CONFLUENCE 

Relationship  between  satire  and  fiction.  Ancient  but  incomplete  and 
uneven  alliance.  Union  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Victorian  nov- 
elists. Their  chronology  and  background.  Classification  as  satirists. 
Testimony  of  the  novelists  themselves  as  to  satire 41 

PART  11 
METHODS 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  ROMANTIC 

Possible  methodic  categories.  Reason  for  present  choice.  Proportion  of 
the  romantic  or  fantastic  type.  Peacock  and  Butler.  Lytton  and  Dis- 
raeli. Thackeray  and  Meredith.  Characteristics  of  this  form  of  satire: 

wit,  invention,  exaggeration,  and  concentration 59 

xi 


Xll  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  II 

THE   REALISTIC 

Character  of  Victorian  realism.  Nature  of  realistic  satire.  Subdivi- 
sions, based  on  authors*  methods  and  devices.  The  direct  or  didactic 
satirists:  Lytton,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Meredith.  Satire  in  plot  or  situa- 
tion: Martin  Chuzzlewit,  Vanity  Fair,  The  Egoist.  Minor  episodes.  Satire 
expressed  by  witty  characters,  of  various  types 84 

CHAPTER  III 

THE   IRONIC 

Verbal  and  philosophic  irony.  Banter  and  sarcasm.  The  Irony  of  Fate. 
Relation  of  irony  to  satire.  Differing  opinions.  Distribution  of  irony 
among  the  novelists.  Direct  or  verbal:  present  in  varying  degrees  in 
practically  all.  Crystallized  and  pervasive  forms.  Irony  in  circumstance: 
Trollope,  Eliot,  and  Meredith.  Subdivisions:  dramatic  irony;  the  reversed 
wheel  of  fortune,  the  granted  desire;  the  lost  opportunity.  Meredithian 
irony  directed  against  the  ironic  interpretation  of  life 121 

PART  111 
OBJECTS 

CHAPTER  I 
INDIVIDUALS 

Personalities  the  original  and  primitive  element  in  satire.  Effect  of  this 
influence  upon  the  satiric  product,  and  of  this  in  turn  upon  the  attitude 
toward  satire.  Citations.  In  fiction  no  hard  and  fast  line  between  real  and 
imaginary  characters.  Lack  of  personal  satire  among  the  novelists.  Its 
prevalence  limited  to  the  earlier  writers:  Peacock,  Lytton,  Disraeli,  and 
Thackeray  before  1850 167 

CHAPTER  II 

INSTITUTION! 

Victorian  attitude  toward  established  institutions.  Satire  directed 
against  the  following:  Society,  including  the  home,  woman,  marriage;  the 
State,  including  politics,  sociology,  law,  charities  and  corrections,  war;  the 
Church,  treated  both  by  partisans  on  the  inside,  and  pagans  on  the  outside; 
the  School,  signifying  education,  from  the  fireside  to  the  college;  Literature 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

and  the  Press;  the  English  as  a  nation.    Lack  of  complementary  recon- 
struction   179 

CHAPTER  III 
TYPES 

Impossibility  of  maintaining  fixed  classes.  Unity  and  emphasis  secured 
by  artificial  devices.  Several  human  traits  temptingly  vulnerable,  though 
all  some  form  of  deceit.  Hypocrisy  the  specialty  of  Dickens,  Folly,  of 
Dickens  and  Meredith,  Snobbishness,  of  Thackeray,  Sentimentality  and 
Egoism,  of  Meredith.  Scattered  fire  against  vulgarity,  fanaticism,  and 
other  targets.  Combination  and  interplay  of  traits  in  one  character  exem- 
plified by  Trollope's  Lady  Carbury 229 

PART  IF 

CONCLUSIONS 

CHAPTER  I 

RELATIONSHIPS 

The  various  novelists  compared  as  to  respective  quality,  quantity,  and 
range  of  satirical  element.  Discussion  of  the  merging  of  satire  into  cyn- 
icism, tragedy,  and  idealism  on  the  critical  side,  and  into  comedy,  wit,  and 
philosophic  humor,  on  the  humorous.  Relation  to  intellect  and  emotion 
Relative  ranking  of  satirists  influenced  by  these  considerations 269 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  VICTORIAN  CONTRIBUTION 

The  cumulative  inheritance.  Recent  change  in  form  from  heroic  couplet 
to  prose  fiction.  Progressive  change  in  substance  from  hypocritical  to 
sentimental  side  of  deceit.  Seen  in  institutions  as  well  as  in  types  of  char- 
acter. Science  and  democracy  the  most  influential  factors.  Scientific 
search  for  causes  of  failure.  Democratic  sense  of  social  responsibility.  Sat- 
ire directed  against  self-deceived  inefficiency  mistaken  for  success.  Satiric 
method  concentrated  on  exposure  of  motives.  Satiric  manner  less  assertive 
and  more  casual  and  urbane.  Recognition  of  the  paradox  in  ridicule. 
Reduction  of  it  to  minor  role,  though  staged  with  more  finesse  and  effec- 
tiveness. Stress  shifted  from  the  critical  element  to  the  ironically  humor- 
ous   288 

Bibliographical  note 317 

Index f . .  329 


PART  I 
PREMISES 


Satire  in  the  Victorian  Novel 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    SATIRIC    SPIRIT 

"Are  ye  satirical,  sir?"  inquired  the  Ettrick  Shepherd, 
warily  suspicious  of  the  cryptic  eulogy  just  pronounced 
by  his  companion  on  the  minds  and  manners  of  the  English 
shopocracy. 

"I  should  be  ashamed  of  myself  if  I  were,  James,"  was 
the  grieved  reply. 

We  know  very  well,  however,  that  Christopher  North 
was  not  ashamed  of  himself,  at  least  not  with  the  true 
contrition  that  leads  to  reformation.  On  the  contrary, 
we  fear  that  he  cherished  and  cultivated  quite  shamelessly 
his  gift  of  caustic  wit.  In  any  case,  whether  the  disavowal 
came  from  ironic  whim  or  from  a  concession  to  the  popular 
attitude  toward  satire,  it  illustrates  the  first  difficulty  con- 
fronting the  student  of  this  indeterminate  subject. 

To  recognize  the  satirical  at  sight,  to  know  whether  a 
man  is  telling  the  truth,  either  when  he  claims  to  be  a 
satirist  or  when  he  disclaims  the  charge,  is  something  of 
an  accomplishment.  For  the  complex  and  Protean  na- 
ture of  satire,  varium  et  mutabile  semper,  has  naturally  led 
to  much  disagreement  not  only  as  to  its  existence  in  cer- 
tain cases,  but  as  to  its  justification  in  general.  To 
its  eulogist,  usually  the  satirist  himself,  satire  is  an 
instrument  of  discipline  with  a  divine  commission, — a 

i 


2  SATIRE     Itf     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Scourge  of  God. ;  To -'itc'. apologist,  usually  the  detached 
observer,  it  is  a  more  or  less  dubious  means  to  a  more  or 
less  necessary  end.  To  its  disparager,  usually  the  satir- 
ized, it  is  a  wanton  mischief-maker,  superfluous  and  in- 
tolerable. The  personal  resentment  of  this  last  may  be 
fortified  by  the  convenient  logic  which  identifies  the  agent 
with  the  cause.  "People  who  really  dread  the  daring, 
original,  impulsive  character  which  is  the  foundation  of 
the  satirical,"  says  Hannay  in  one  of  his  lectures  on  Satire, 
"ingenuously  blame  the  satirist  for  the  state  of  things* 
which  he  attacks." 

These  varieties  of  attitude  toward  satire  arise  not  only 
from  varieties  in  temperament  and  satirical  experience, 
but  from  the  diverse  manifestations  of  satire  itself.  Take, 
for  instance,  those  characters  in  literature  which  seem 
to  be  an  incarnation  of  the  satiric  spirit.  Thersites  is  the 
dealer  in  personalities,  scoffing  and  gibing  at  the  elite 
with  the  licensed  audacity  of  the  court  fool.  Reynard  is 
the  satirical  rogue  who  not  only  perceives  the  weaknesses 
of  his  fellow  citizens  but  turns  them  to  his  own  advan- 
tage. Alceste  is  the  misanthrope,  "critic,"  as  Meredith 
says,  "of  everybody  save  himself,"  but  lifting  his  stric- 
tures out  of  the  merely  personal  by  attaching  them  to 
a  general  interpretation  of  life.  The  Hebrew  Adversary 
is  the  cynic  with  a  scientific  zest  for  experiment.  He 
impugns  motives,  fleers  at  fair  appearances,  prides  him- 
self on  his  superior  penetration,  and  questions  the  price 
for  which  a  prosperous  Job  serves  God.  His  loss  of  the 
wager  through  actual  test  of  his  theory  has  been  taken 
as  proof  that  such  suspicions  are  unwarranted,  and  that 
the  trust  of  the  Divine  Idealist  in  human  nature  was 
justified.  This  conclusion,  however,  must  be  qualified 
by  the  admission  that  the  inductive  process  was  con- 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  $ 

ducted  on  limited  data,  and  that  if  Eliphaz,  Bildad,  or 
Zophar  had  been  chosen  for  the  trial,  the  result  might 
have  been  different.  As  it  was,  the  final  silence  of  the 
quenched  satirist,  and  his  absence  from  the  happy  end- 
ing may  be  construed  as  a  sign  of  defeat  in  one  instance 
that  by  no  means  invalidated  his  general  attitude  of 
doubt  and  interrogation. 

Of  all  these  embodiments,  however,  the  most  perfect 
representation  of  the  satiric  spirit  is  a  product  of  English 
genius.  The  melancholy  Jaques  has  abundant  slings 
and  arrows  of  his  own  wherewith  to  retaliate  for  those 
of  outrageous  fortune,  but  he  never  fails  to  wing  them 
with  laconic  wit  and  imperturbable  humor.  He  expressly 
denies  being  guilty  of  personalities. 

"What  woman  in  the  city  do  I  name, 
When  that  I  say  the  city-woman  bears 
The  cost  of  princes  on  unworthy  shoulders?" 

He  snubs  with  careless  aplomb  the  too  bratorical  Orlando, 
and  cannily  avoids  the  too  loquacious  Duke.  "  I  think  of  as 
many  matters  as  he,"  he  observes,  "but  I  give  heaven 
thanks,  and  make  no  boast  of  them."  He  reviews  the  career 
of  man,  and  sees  him  proceeding  with  pretentious  futility 
through  his  seven  sad  ages  to  an  inglorious  conclusion. 
And  yet  this  philosopher  admits  his  very  pessimism  to 
be  something  of  a  pose,  and  turns  his  humor  reflexively 
against  himself.  All  satirists  have  a  fondness  for  sucking 
melancholy  out  of  a  song  as  a  weasel  sucks  eggs;  all  are 
prone  to  rail  at  the  first  born  of  Egypt  simply  because 
they  cannot  sleep,  but  few  have  the  honesty  to  acknowl- 
edge it.  Meanwhile,  although  this  courtier  claims  mot- 
ley as  his  only  wear,  his  companions  perceive  the  gen- 
uineness of  his  humanity  and  the  value  of  his  protests. 


<4  SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Thus  most  invectively  he  pierceth  through 
The  body  of  the  country,  city,  court, 
Yea,  and  of  this  our  life." 

And  thus  have  diverse  manifestations  of  the  satiric 
spirit  appeared  from  time  to  time.  Few  seem  to  be 
visible  just  at  present,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
Spirit  of  Satire  has  not  deserted  our  planet.  Still  is  he 
busy  walking  up  and  down  in  the  earth  and  going  to 
and  fro  in  it.  Still  does  he  probe  and  mock,  sometimes 
with  penetrative  wisdom,  sometimes  in  prejudice  and 
error,  but  always  as  a  challenge  not  to  be  ignored. 

Satire  has  not  only  embodied  itself  in  certain  charac- 
ters of  literature,  but  has  made  and  maintained  for 
itself  an  important  place  in  that  realm.  This  place  may 
be  divided  into  two  fairly  distinct  areas.  The  narrower 
one  is  known  as  formal  satire,  and  has  always  been  ex- 
pressed in  verse:  the  Latin  hexameter,  the  Italian  terza 
rima,  the  French  Alexandrine,  the  English  heroic  couplet. 
The  largerr  and  less  definite  section  is  formed  by  surcharg- 
ing with  the  satiric  tone  some  other  literary  type.  Such 
a  combination  is  found  in  the  Aristophanic  comedy,  the 
dialogues  of  Lucian,  the  romances  of  Rabelais,  Cervantes, 
and  Swift.  Such  also  are  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  Don  Juan, 
The  Bigelow  Papers,  Man  and  Superman,  and  countless 
others.  In  addition  to  these  there  is  a  third  estate,  the 
largest  and  most  heterogeneous,  consisting  of  writings 
mainly  serious,  with  a  more  or  less  pronounced  satiric 
flavor. 

Any  study,  therefore,  which  tries  to  deal  with  satire 
as  a  mode  rather  than  a  form  will  profit  by  using  the 
adjective  instead  of  the  noun.  Without  fully  accepting 
the  erasure  of  the  old  literary  boundaries  advocated  by 
Croce,  Spingarn,  and  the  modern  school,  we  may  say 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT 


that  in  this  particular  field  at  least,  the  substitution  of 
the  descriptive  satiric  for  the  categoric  satire  shows  that 
discretion  which  is  the  better  part  of  valor.  Still,  since 
to  avoid  the  responsibility  of  deciding  whether  or  not 
a  given  production  is  a  satire,  by  the  non-committal 
device  of  calling  it  satiric,  is  only  to  beg  the  question 
so  far  as  a  definition  is  concerned,  it  is  advisable  to  pro- 
duce some  identifying  label.  Stated  in  brief,  satire  is 
humorous  criticism  of  human  foibles  and  faults,  or  of 
life  itself,  directed  especially  against  deception,  and  ex- 
pressed with  sufficient  art  to  be  accounted  as  literature. 

When  we  say,  however,  that  satire  is  a  union  of  those 
two  intangible,  subjective  elements,  criticism  and  humor, 
we  do  not  assume  the  equation 
fully  to  be  expressed  by  the  for- 
mula— Antagonism  plus  Amuse- 
ment equals  Satire.  For  neither 
is  all  criticism  humorous  nor  all 
humor  critical.  The  relation  is 
that  of  two  circles,  not  coincident  but  overlapping. 

Confusion  has  arisen  because,  while  the  boundaries  of 
the  two  separate  circles  are  fairly  distinct  in  our  minds, 
the  circumference  made  by  their  conjunction  is  merged  in 
their  respective  planes.  Accordingly,  the  term  satire  is 
sometimes  used  to  denote  humorless  criticism, — which  is 
really  invective,  denunciation,  any  sort  of  reprehension; 
and  sometimes  uncritical  humor, — which  is  mere  facetious- 
ness  and  jocularity.  Not  every  prophet,  preacher,  or 
pedagogue  is  a  satirist,  nor  yet  every  merry  clown,  or 
exuberant  youth,  or  mild  worldly-wiseman  enjoying  the 
blunders  of  innocent  naivete. 

Professor  Dewey  reminds  us  that  the  ideal  state  of  mind 
is  "a  nice  balance  between  the  playful  and  the  serious." 


O  SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

But  in  the  satiric  circle  a  nice  balance  would  be  found 
only  at  the  center.  Wherever  there  are  boundaries, 
there  are  always  some  sections  of  the  enclosure  nearer 
the  margin  than  others.  Thus,  although  satire  is  a  com- 
pound, it  does  not  follow  that  its  fractions  stand  in  a  con- 
stant uniform  ratio.  On  the  contrary,  the  proportion 
ranges  all  the  way  from  a  minimum  of  humor  in  a  Juvenal 
or  a  Johnson  to  a  minimum  of  criticism  in  a  Horace, 
a  Gay,  or  a  Lamb.  Either  quality  may  reach  the  vanish- 
ing point,  but  when  it  passes  it,  the  remaining  one  can- 
not alone  create  satire,  any  more  than  oxygen  or  hydro- 
gen can  be  transformed  into  water. 

Nor  can  either  quality  be  defined  in  other  than  psy- 
chological terms.  The  critical  sense  is  rooted  in  the 
instincts  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  the  reaction  of 
an  organism  to  any  new  stimulus  being  fro  or  con  ac- 
cording to  the  preestablished  harmony  or  antagonism 
between  them.  As  each  human  being  grows  to  maturity 
by  responding  to  experience,  he  acquires  his  individual 
set  of  opinions  and  ideals,  largely  borrowed  from  the 
habits  and  conventions  of  his  groups,  ethnic,  social,  and 
what  not,  with  a  small  residue  of  his  own  originality. 
Equipped  with  this  outfit  of  criteria  he  looks  upon  life 
and  finds  it  complete  or  wanting,  tests  his  fellow  men 
and  approves  or  condemns,  examines  all  created  things 
and  calls  them  good  or  bad.  But  he  is  so  constituted 
that  his  acquiescence  is  likely  to  be  somewhat  passive, 
and  his  protests  active,  his  commendation  grudging  and 
qualified,  his  condemmation  sweeping  and  thorough. 
Says  an  eighteenth  century  satirist, —  1 

"  Broad  is  the  road,  nor  difficult  to  find, 
Which  to  the  house  of  Satire  leads  mankind; 

1  Churchill,  in  The  Author. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  7 

Narrow  and  unfrequented  are  the  ways, 

Scarce  found  out  in  an  age,  which  lead  to  praise." 

The  humorous  sense  is  likewise  an  essence  and  an  in- 
dex of  disposition.  The  inadequacy  of  most  definitions 
of  the  ludicrous,  from  Aristotle's  "  innocuous,  unexpected 
incongruity,"  to  Bergson's  "mechanical  inelasticity," 
lies  in  their  concentration  on  the  objective  side  of  it, — the 
stimulus  to  mirth, — whereas  the  subjective, — the  mirth- 
ful person, — deserves  the  emphasis.  Laughter  throws  a 
far  more  illuminating  ray  on  the  laugher  than  the  laughed 
at,  for  it  indicates  not  only  taste  and  mood  but  the  trend 
of  one's  philosophy.  In  betraying  a  man's  idea  of  the  in- 
congruous, it  implies  his  conception  of  the  congruous,  and 
reveals  his  whole  coordination  of  life.  We  may,  it  is  true, 
define  humor  by  saying  that  intellectually  it  is  a  con- 
templation of  life  from  the  angle  of  amusement,  and 
emotionally,  a  joyous  effervescence  over  the  absurdities 
in  life  ever  present  to  the  discerning  eye;  but  we  can  never 
quite  capture  it,  any  more  than  pleasure  or  tragedy.  We 
can,  however,  use  these  abstractions  as  refracted  definers 
of  character,  by  noting  what  sort  of  a  man  it  is  who  re- 
gards such  and  such  things  as  amusing,  or  delightful,  or 
unendurable.  For  not  only  as  a  man  thinks,  but  also  as 
he  laughs  and  exults  and  censures  and  suffers,  so  is  he. 

That  satire  is  woven  from  double  strands,  the  blue  of 
rebuke  and  the  red  of  wit, — becoming  thereby  in  a  chro- 
matic sense  the  purple  patch  of  literature, — is  testified  to 
by  satiric  theory  as  well  as  practice.  The  critical  ele- 
ment may  of  course  be  taken  for  granted,  but  since  it 
has  been  sometimes  over-emphasized  at  the  expense  of  the 
humorous,  some  testimony  as  to  the  latter  must  be  given. 

It  is  to  Horace  that  we  are  indebted  not  only  for  the 
first  finished  formal  satire,  but  for  the  first  attempt  at 


8  SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

an  analysis  of  the  then  newest  literary  type.  He  sketches 
the  history  of  satire  as  an  exposure  of  crime,  but  insists 
that  this  mission  may  be  performed  with  courtesy  and 
the  light  touch,  since  even  weighty  matters  are  some- 
times settled  more  effectively  by  a  jest  than  by  grim 
asperity. 

"  Ridiculum  acri 
Fortius  et  melius  magnas  plerumque  secat  res"  l 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  his  own  consistent  practice 
in  this  matter  is  acknowledged  by  his  successor  Persius, 
who  says  of  him, 

"Sportive  and  pleasant  round  the  heart  he  played, 
And  wrapt  in  jests  the  censure  he  conveyed."  2 

When  Jonson  reintroduced  the  Aristophanic  vehicle  of 
comedy  to  carry  his  satire,  though  fashioned  in  a  different 
style,  he  also  re-voiced  the  Horatian  satiric  philosophy, 
promising  realism, — such  characters  and  actions  as  com- 
edy would  choose, 

"When  she  would  show  an  image  of  the  times, 
And  sport  with  human  follies,  not  with  crimes. 
Except  we  make  'hem  such,  by  loving  still 
Our  popular  errors,  when  we  know  they're  ill. 
I  mean  such  errors,  as  you'll  all  confess, 
By  laughing  at  them,  they  deserve  no  less:"  3 

A  writer  of  the  Restoration  Period  carries  on  the  tradi- 
tion: 

1  Satires,  I,  10,  15. 

8  Drummond's  translation.    A  similar  couplet  is  rendered  by  Evans, 
"He,  with  a  sly,  insinuating  grace, 

Laugh'd  at  his  friend,  and  look'd  him  in  the  face." 
*  Preface  to  Every  Man  in  his  Humour. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  9 

"Some  did  all  folly  with  just  sharpness  blame, 
Whilst  others  laughed  and  scorned  them  into  shame. 
But  of  these  two,  the  last  succeeded  best, 
As  men  aim  Tightest  when  they  shoot  in  jest."  1 

The  spokesman  of  the  eighteenth  century  on  this 
point  is  Young. 

"No  man  can  converse  much  in  the  world  but,  at  what  he 
meets  with,  he  must  either  be  insensible,  or  grieve,  or  be  angry, 
or  smile.  Some  passion  (if  we  are  not  impassive)  must  be 
moved;  for  the  general  conduct  of  mankind  is  by  no  means  a 
thing  indifferent  to  a  reasonable  and  virtuous  man.  Now, 
to  smile  at  it,  and  turn  it  into  ridicule,  I  think  most  eligible; 
as  it  hurts  ourselves  least,  and  gives  Vice  and  Folly  the  greatest 
offense. 

"Laughing  at  the  misconduct  of  the  world  will,  in  a  great 
measure,  ease  us  of  any  more  disagreeable  passion  about  it. 
One  passion  is  more  effectually  driven  out  by  another  than  by 
reason."  2 

And  about  the  same  time  our  first  satirical  novelist 
was  avowing  his  own  creed  and  performance: 

"If  nature  hath  given  me  any  talents  at  ridiculing  vice  and 
imposture,  I  shall  not  be  indolent,  nor  afraid  of  exerting  them."  3 

Again :  "  I  have  employed  all  the  wit  and  humour  of  which 
I  am  master  in  the  following  history;  wherein  I  have  endeav- 
oured to  laugh  mankind  out  of  their  favorite  follies  and  vices."  4 

1  Essay  on  Satire,  by  the  Duke  of  Buckingham:  Dryden's  Works,  XV,  201. 

2  Young:  Preface  to  the  Seven  Satires. 

3  Fielding:  Historical  Register:  Dedication  to  the  Public,  III,  341. 

4  Fielding:  Tom  Jones:  Dedication  to  George  Lyttleton,  VI,  5. 

He  also  says,  in  The  Covent  Garden  Journal:  "  Few  men,  I  believe,  do  more 
admire  the  works  of  those  great  masters  who  have  sent  their  satire  (if  I  may  use 
the  expression)  laughing  into  the  world.  Such  are  the  great  triumvirate,  Lucian, 
Cervantes,  and  Swift." 


IO          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

The  self-conscious  nineteenth  century  is  full  of  com- 
ments on  this  topic,  as  on  all  others,  but  two  or  three 
representative  ones  will  suffice  as  examples. 

It  is  not  really  the  great  Greek  satirist  but  his  modern 
interpreter  who  utters  this  explanatory  sentiment: 

"Now,  earnestness  seems  never  earnest  more 
Than  when  it  dons  for  garb — indifference; 
So,  there's  much  laughing:  but,  compensative, 
When  frowning  follows  laughter,  then  indeed 
Scout  innuendo,  sarcasm,  irony!"  1 

Finally,  turning  to  the  encyclopedia  for  a  modern  offi- 
cial pronouncement,  we  find  humor  again  cited  as  a  sine 
qua  non.2 

"Satire  in  its  literary  aspect  may  be  defined  as  the  expression 
adequate  terms  of  the  sense  of  amusement  or  disgust  excited 
by  the  ridiculous  or  unseemly,  provided  that  humor  is  a  dis- 
tinctly recognisable  element,  and  that  the  utterance  is  invested 
with  literary  form.  Without  humor,  satire  is  invective;  with- 
out literary  form,  it  is  mere  clownish  jesting.  *  *  *  This 
feeling  of  disgust  or  contempt  may  be  diverted  from  the 
failings  of  man  individual  to  the  feebleness  and  imperfection 
of  man  universal,  and  the  composition  may  still  be  a  satire; 
but  if  the  element  of  scorn  or  sarcasm  were  entirely  eliminated 
it  would  become  a  sermon." 

The  matter  of  ingredients  is  more  easily  disposed  of, 
however,  than  that  of  causation.  It  is  obviously  easier 
to  scrutinize  a  finished  product  and  see  what  it  is  made 
of  than  to  go  back  to  its  origin  and  discover  why  it  was 
made.  For  the  latter  process  leads  us  to  the  domain  of 
motives,  that  shadowy  realm  where  the  real  is  often  made 
to  hide  behind  the  assumed  or  at  least  the  instinctive 

1  Browning:  Aristophanes'  Apology.      8  Garnett,  in  the  Enc.  Brit.  9th  edition. 


>THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  II 

kept  down  by  the  acquired.  In  this  mental  kingdom 
many  an  impulsive  little  prince  has  been  smothered  by  a 
deliberative,  ambitious  usurper  who  felt  a  call  to  rule. 

In  the  province  of  satire  the  real  internal  stimulus  is 
temperament.  If  a  man  has  a  critical  disposition,  he  is 
bound  to  criticise.  If  he  has  a  keen  sense  of  humor,  he 
will  be  alive  to  the  absurd.  If  he  possesses  both,  he  is  a 
natural-born  satirist  and  cannot  escape  his  manifest  des- 
tiny,— so  long  as  he  is  not  inarticulate.  But  the  declared 
motives  are  for  the  most  part  ethical  and  altruistic,  a 
lineage  much  more  presentable  and  worthy  of  high  com- 
mand. 

This  human  tendency  to  justify  its  instinctive  behavior 
by  ex  post  facto  morality  has  produced  an  impressive 
symposium  on  the  thesis  that  satire  has  a  definite  pur- 
pose and  moreover  a  noble  one.  Thus  while  the  satirist 
admits  his  malice  aforethought,  he  protests  that  the  mali- 
cious suffers  a  sea  change  into  the  beneficent,  for  that 
he  must  be  cruel  only  to  be  kind.  The  modest  and  honest 
confession  of  Horace  l  that  he  wrote  satire  because  he 
had  to  write  something  and  was  not  equal  to  epic,  was 
soon  supplanted  by  the  Juvenalian  declaration  of  saeva 

1  "Wolves  use  their  teeth  against  you,  bulls  their  horn; 

Why,  but  that  each  is  to  the  manner  born?"    Satires,  I,  I.    Conington,  46. 
Some  modern  echoes  are  heard.    Says  Byron, — 

"Satiric  rhyme  first  sprang  from  selfish  spleen; 
You  doubt — see  Dryden,  Pope,  St.  Patrick's  Dean." 

Hints  from  Horace. 

Taine  applies  his  general  theory  to  this  instance: 

"No  wonder  if  in  England  a  novelist  writes  satires.  A  gloomy  and  reflective 
man  is  impelled  to  it  by  his  character;  he  is  still  further  impelled  by  the  sur- 
rounding manners."  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.  IV,  166. 

In  Shaw's  An  Unsocial  Socialist,  one  character  says  of  another:  "Besides, 
Gertrude  despises  everyone,'  even  us.  Or  rather,  she  doesn't  despise  anyone 
in  particular,  but  is  contemptuous  by  nature,  just  as  you  are  stout." 


12         SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

indignat'iOy  and  it  is  from  this  perennial  spring  that  a 
steady  flow  of  eulogy  has  irrigated  the  history  of  satire. 
A  representative  of  the  Elizabethan  group  is  Marston: l 

"I  would  show  to  be 
Tribunus  plebis,  'gainst  the  villainy 
Of  those  same  Proteans,  whose  hypocrisy 
Doth  still  abuse  our  fond  credulity." 

Milton  manages  here  as  elsewhere  to  sound  a  clarion 
note  over  the  clash  of  seventeenth  century  partisanship: 2 

"A  taste  for  delicate  satire  cannot  be  general  until  refinement 
of  manners  is  general  likewise;  till  we  are  enlightened  enough 
to  comprehend  that  the  legitimate  object  of  satire  is  not  to 
humble  an  individual,  but  to  improve  the  species.  *  *  * 
For  a  satire  as  it  is  born  out  of  a  tragedy  so  it  ought  to  resemble 
its  parentage,  to  strike  high,  to  adventure  dangerously  at  the 
most  eminent  vices  among  the  greatest  persons." 

Defoe  3  echoes  Dryden,4  both  speaking  with  reasonable 
consistency;  and  even  Pope  5  tries  to  make  out  a  case  for 
himself.  But  the  completest  paean  is  from  the  pen  of 
John  Brown.6  His  poetic  analysis  begins  at  the  beginning: 

"In  every  breast  there  burns  an  active  flame, 
The  love  of  glory,  or  the  dread  of  shame: 
The  passion  one,  though  various  it  appear, 
As  brighten'd  into  hope,  or  dimm'd  by  fear. 

1  Scourge  of  Villainy. 

2  Apology  for  Smectymnuus. 

3  "The  end  of  Satire  is  reformation."    Preface  to  The  Trueborn  Englishman. 

4  "The  true  end  of  Satire  is  the  amendment  of  vices  by  correction."     Preface 
to  Absalom  and  Achitophel. 

6  "Now  the  author,  living  in  these  times,  did  conceive  it  an  endeavour  worthy 
an  honest  satirist,  to  dissuade  the  dull,  and  punish  the  wicked,  in  the  only  way 
that  was  left."  Preface  of  Martinus  Scriblerus  to  The  Dunciad. 

6  An  Essay  on  Satire.  Occasioned  by  the  death  of  Pope.  Inscribed  to  Dr. 
Warburton.  In  Dodsley's  Collection  of  Poems,  Vol.  III. 


Kl 


THE     SATFKl        S'.T  13 

Thus  heav'n  in  pity  wakes  the  friendly  flame, 
To  urge  mankind  on  deeds  that  merit  fame: 
But  man,  vain  man,  in  folly  only  wise, 
Rejects  the  manna  sent  him  from  the  skies:" 

The  climax  of  this  human  error  is  perverted  ambition 
and  a  snobbish  idea  of  excellence: 

"The  daemon  Shame  paints  strong  the  ridicule, 
And  whispers  close,  'the  world  will  call  you  fool!' 

Hence  Satire's  pow'r:  'tis  her  corrective  part 
To  calm  the  wild  disorders  of  the  heart. 
She  points  the  arduous  heights  where  glory  lies, 
And  teaches  mad  ambition  to  be  wise: 
In  the  dark  bosom  wakes  the  fair  desire, 
Draws  good  from  ill,  a  brighter  flame  from  fire; 
Strips  black  Oppression  of  her  gay  disguise, 
And  bids  the  hag  in  native  horror  rise; 
Strikes  tow'  ring  pride  and  lawless  rapine  dead, 
And  plants  the  wreath  on  Virtue's  awful  head. 

Nor  boasts  the  Muse  a  vain  imagin'd  pow'r, 
Though  oft  she  mourns  those  ills  she  cannot  cure, 
The  worthy  court  her,  and  the  worthless  fear; 
Who  shun  her  piercing  eye,  that  eye  revere. 
Her  awful  voice  the  vain  and  vile  obey, 
And  every  foe  to  wisdom  feels  her  sway. 
Smarts,  pedants,  as  she  smiles,  no  more  are  vain; 
Desponding  fops  resign  the  clouded  cane: 
Hush'd  at  her  voice,  pert  Folly's  self  is  still, 
And  Dulness  wonders  while  she  drops  her  quill." 

The  author's  optimism  mounts  even  to  the  disparage- 
ment of  Force,  Policy,  Religion,  Mercy,  and  Justice,  in 
comparison  with  this  puissant  and  impeccable  goddess, 
in  whose  presence  the  wicked  never  cease  from  trem- 
bling, —  especially  stricken  when  she  draws 


14  SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Her  magic  quill,  that  like  Ithuriel's  spear 
Reveals  the  cloven  hoof,  or  lengthen'd  ear; 

Drags  the  vile  whisperer  from  his  dark  abode, 
'Till  all  the  daemon  starts  up  from  the  toad." 

Feeling  perhaps  that  after  all  his  client's  status  is  a  trifle 
dubious,  her  advocate  continues  with  a  caution  and  a  cli- 
max: 

"Who  combats  Virtue's  foe  is  Virtue's  friend; 
Then  judge  of  Satire's  merit  by  her  end: 
To  guilt  alone  her  vengeance  stands  confin'd, 
The  object  of  her  love  is  all  mankind." 

The  sober  eighteenth  century  brings  us  back  to  reality 
with  a  characteristic  comment  by  the  best  satirist  of  the 
period,  who  admires  his  favorite  predecessors,  "not  in- 
deed for  that  wit  and  humour  alone  which  they  all  so  emi- 
nently possessed,  but  because  they  all  endeavoured,  with 
the  utmost  force  of  their  wit  and  humour,  to  expose  and 
extirpate  those  follies  and  vices  which  chiefly  prevailed  in 
their  several  countries."  1 

But  Gifford,  akin  in  spirit  to  the  satirist  he  translated, 
goes  to  the  extreme  in  taking  the  satiric  office  seriously: 

"To  raise  a  laugh  at  vice  *  *  *  is  not  the  legitimate 
office  of  Satire,  which  is  to  hold  up  the  vicious  as  objects  of 
reprobation  and  scorn,  for  the  example  of  others,  who  may  be 
deterred  by  their  sufferings." 

De  Quincey  carries  the  tradition  over  into  the  nineteenth 
century  by  reminding  us  that  "  the  satirist  has  a  reforma- 
tive as  well  as  a  punitive  duty  to  discharge."  Meredith  3 
agrees  that  "the  satirist  is  a  moral  agent,  often  a  social 

1  Fielding:  Covent  Garden  Journal. 

2  Preface  to  the  Translation  of  Juvenal. 

3  Essay  on  Comedy,  76, 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  15 

scavenger,  working  on  a  storage  of  bile."  Symonds  1  af- 
firms that  "Without  an  appeal  to  conscience  the  satirist 
has  no  locus  standi"  Browning  has  Balaustion  say  to 
Aristophanes: 

"Good  Genius!    Glory  of  the  poet,  glow 
O'  the  humorist  who  castigates  his  kind, 
Suave  summer-lightning  lambency  which  plays 
On  stag-horned  tree,  misshapen  crag  askew, 
Then  vanishes  with  unvindictive  smile 
After  a  moment's  laying  black  earth  bare, 
Splendor  of  wit  that  springs  a  thunderball — 
Satire — to  burn  and  purify  the  world, 
True  aim,  fair  purpose;  just  wit  justly  strikes 
Injustice, — right,  as  rightly  quells  the  wrong, 
Finds  out  in  knaves',  fools',  cowards'  armory 
The  tricky  tinselled  place  fire  flashes  through, 
No  damage  else,  sagacious  of  true  ore." 

And  Dawson  2  brings  satiric  utilitarianism  into  the  pres- 
ent century: 

"  It  is  quite  beside  the  mark  to  say  that  we  do  not  like  satire. 
It  is  equally  beside  the  mark  to  say  that  we  have  never  known 
such  a  world  as  this.  The  thing  to  be  remembered  is  that  in 
all  ages  the  satirist  of  manners  has  been  of  the  utmost  service 
to  society  in  exposing  its  follies  and  lashing  its  vices.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  great  satirist  to  apply  the  caustic  to  the  ulcers  of 
society;  and  if  we  are  to  let  our  dislike  of  satire  overrule  our  judg- 
ment, we  shall  not  only  record  our  votes  against  a  Juvenal  and 
a  Swift,  but  equally  against  the  whole  line  of  Hebrew  prophets." 

All  these  citations  refer  more  or  less  directly  to  the 
cause — the  reason  or  motive  for  satirical  utterance — but 
have  some  bearing  on  the  effect — the  tangible  result  of 
it, — since  the  two  are  to  a  certain  extent  inseparable.  V 

1  The  Renaissance  in  Italy,  V,  270.  2  Makers  of  English  Fiction,  86. 


l6          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

They  are,  however,  also  distinct,  and  particularly  so  in 
this  case;  as  cause  is  a  psychological  and  hidden  thing,  and 
effect  is  more  external  and  visible.  In  turning  from  the 
first  to  the  second  we  pass  from  deductive  argument  to  in- 
ductive. The  logic  of  the  former  is  an  Idol  of  the  Tribe, 
particularly  of  the  British  tribe,  unable  to  rest  until  every- 
thing has  been  drafted  under  the  ethic  flag  and  brought 
into  the  moral  fold.  We  pass  also  from  spacious  promise 
to  rather  cramped  and  meager  performance.  Satiric  in- 
tent looms  as  large  as  the  imposing  first  appearance  of  the 
giant  of  Destiny,  in  Maeterlinck's  Betrothal-,  satiric  accom- 
plishment shrinks  to  the  size  of  his  exit  as  the  babe  in  arms. 
And  while  the  assertion  of  inexorability  and  omnipotence 
is  continued  bravely  to  the  end,  albeit  in  a  voice  of  quav- 
ering diminuendo,  a  counter  voice  is  also  heard,  repudiat- 
ing extravagant  claims. 

Both  attitudes  are  expressed  in  turn  by  an  eighteenth 
century  satirist.  In  his  Epistle  to  William  Hogarth 
Churchill  exclaims, 

"Can  Satire  want  a  subject,  where  Disdain, 
By  virtue  fired,  may  point  her  sharpest  strain  ? 
Where,  clothed  in  thunder,  Truth  may  roll  along, 
And  Candour  justify  the  rage  of  song?" 

But  in  'The  Candidate,  he  announces  reform  of  his  former 
practices,  in  a  series  of  rhetorical  "Enoughs,"  coming  to 
a  climax  in — 

"Enough  of  Satire — in  less  hardened  times 
Great  was  her  force,  and  mighty  were  her  rhymes." 

In  his  own  degenerate  days,  however, — 

"Satire  throws  by  her  arrows  on  the  ground, 
And  if  she  cannot  cure,  she  will  not  wound. 
Come,  Panegyric,"  *  *  * 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  IJ 


In  The  Author  he  asks,  "Liv^  H^  a  man  whom  Satire 
cannot  reach?"  And  the  ;•  K  English  Bards  and 
Scotch  Reviewers  declares  thaCT  HKi  folly  will — 

"More  darkly  sin,  by  Satire  kept  in  awe, 
And  shrink  from  ridicule,  though  not  from  law." 

But  Marston  and  Defoe,  already  quoted  on  the  other 
side,  have  their  dubious  moments.  Says  the  former,1 

"Now,  Satire,  cease  to  rub  our  galled  skirts, 
And  to  unmask  the  world's  detested  sins; 
Thou  shalt  as  soon  draw  Nilus  river  dry 
As  cleanse  the  world  from  foul  impiety." 

And  the  latter 2  would  be  sanguine  if  he  could : 

"If  my  countrymen  would  take  the  hint  and  grow  better- 
natured  from  my  ill-natured  poem,  as  some  call  it,  I  would  say 
this  of  it,  that  though  it  is  far  from  the  best  satire  that  ever  was 
written,  it  would  do  the  most  good  that  ever  satire  did." 

Gifford  3  also,  though  a  believer  in  the  mission  of  satire, 
admits  that  "to  laugh  at  fools  is  superfluous,  and  at  the 
vicious  unwise." 

Cowper  4  allows  minor  accomplishments: 

1  Scourge  of  Villainy,  Satire  II. 

2  Preface  to  The  Trueborn  Englishmen. 

3  Preface  to  his  translation  of  Aristophanes. 

4  The  Task:  The  Time-Piece. 

His  object  is  to  point  out  the  superiority  of  the  preacher,  who  steps  in 
"*     *     *    when  the  sat' rist  has  at  last 
Strutting  and  vaporing  in  an  empty  school, 
Spent  all  his  force  and  made  no  proselyte." 

Later,  however,  he  inadvertently  admits  even  clerical  insufficiency: 
"  Since  pulpits  fail,  and  sounding  boards  reflect 
Most  part  an  empty  ineffectual  sound, 
What  chance  that  I,  to  fame  so  little  known, 
Nor  conversant  with  men  or  manners  much, 
Should  speak  to  purpose,  or  with  better  hope 
Crack  the  satiric  thong?"    (From  The  Garden). 


l8          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Yet  what  can  satire,  whether  grave  or  gay? 
It  may  correct  a  foible,  may  chastise 
The  freaks  of  fashion,  regulate  the  dress, 
Retrench  a  sword-blade,  or  displace  a  patch; 
But  where  are  its  sublimer  trophies  found  ? 
What  vice  has  it  subdu'd  ?  whose  heart  reclaimed 
By  rigour,  or  whom  laugh'd  into  reform  ? 
Alas!  Leviathan  is  not  so  tam'd; 
Laugh'd  at,  he  laughs  again;  and,  stricken  hard, 
Turns  to  the  strike  his  adamantine  scales, 
That  fear  no  discipline  of  human  hands." 

Young  1  grants  it  a  fighting  chance: 

"But  it  is  possible  that  satire  may  not  do  much  good;  men 
may  rise  in  their  affections  to  their  follies,  as  they  do  to  their 
friends,  when  they  are  abused  by  others.  It  is  much  to  be 
feared  that  misconduct  will  never  be  chased  out  of  the  world 
by  satire;  all,  therefore,  that  is  to  be  said  for  it  is,  that  miscon- 
duct will  certainly  never  be  chased  out  of  the  world  by  satire, 
if  no  satires  are  written.  Nor  is  that  term  unapplicable  to 
graver  compositions.  Ethics,  Heathen  and  Christian,  and  the 
scriptures  themselves,  are,  in  a  great  measure,  a  satire  on  the 
weakness  and  iniquity  of  men;  and  some  part  of  that  satire  is 
in  verse,  too.  *  Nay,  historians  themselves  may  be 

considered  as  satirists  and  satirists  most  severe;  since  such  are 
most  human  actions,  that  to  relate  is  to  expose  them." 

The  distrust  of  the  moderns  is  adequately  voiced  by 
Sidgwick: 2 

"Satire  is  the  weapon  of  the  man  at  odds  with  the  world  and 
at  ease  with  himself.  The  dissatisfied  man — a  Juvenal,  a 
Swift,  a  youthful  Thackeray — belabors  the  world  with  vocif- 

1  Preface  to  The  Universal  Passion, 

The  last  part  of  the  passage  anticipates  our  discussion  of  satire  as  exposure. 

2  Essays  on  Great  Writers:  Some  Aspects  of  Thackeray. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  19 

erous  indignation,  like  the  wind  on  the  traveller's  back,  the 
beating  makes  it  hug  its  cloaking  sins  the  tighter.  Wrong 
runs  no  danger  from  such  chastisement.  *  *  *  Satire  is 
harmless  as  a  moral  weapon.  It  is  an  old-fashioned  fowling' 
piece,  fit  for  a  man  of  wit,  intelligence,  and  a  certain  limited 
imagination.  It  runs  no  risk  of  having  no  quarry;  the  world 
to  it  is  one  vast  covert  of  lawful  game.  It  goes  a-travelling 
with  wit,  because  both  are  in  search  of  the  unworthy." 

Two  comments  on  Aristophanes  illustrate  the  pro  and 
c on  of  satiric  accomplishment.  Cope,  in  the  Preface  to  his 
translation,  remarks: 

"He  felt  it  his  duty  to  do  all  he  could  to  counteract  the  in- 
creasing influence  of  Euripides  upon  the  rising  generation,  and 
knowing  the  power  of  ridicule,  he  employs  this  weapon  con- 
stantly and  mercilessly;  but  he  is  careful  not  to  injure  his  own 
cause  by  exaggerated  caricature,  which  might  have  created 
sympathy  for  the  object  of  his  censure." 

But  White,  while  warning  us  against  regarding  the  drama- 
tist as  either  "a  mere  moralist  or  a  mere  jester,"  judges  by 
record: 1 

"If  Aristophanes  was  working  for  reform,  as  a  long  line  of 
learned  interpreters  of  the  poet  have  maintained,  the  result 
was  lamentably  disappointing;  he  succeeded  in  effecting  not 
a  single  change.  He  wings  the  shafts  of  his  incomparable  wit 
at  all  the  popular  leaders  of  the  day — Cleon,  Hyperbolus, 
Peisander,  Cleophon,  Agyrrhius,  in  succession,  and  is  reluctant 
to  unstring  his  bow  even  when  they  are  dead.  But  he  drove 
no  one  of  them  from  power." 

Yet  after  due  deduction  has  been  made,  Satire  has  left 
to  it  an  asset  of  considerable  net  value;  an  influence  that 
may  be  subjective  if  not  objective,  general  if  not  specific, 

1  Introduction  to  Croiset's  Aristophanes  and  the  Political  Parties  at  Athens. 


2O          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

and  artistic  if  not  rampantly  ethical.  As  an  instrument  or  | 
self  criticism,  whereby  a  man  may  be  saved  from  making  I 
a  solemn  pompous  fool  of  himself,  as  an  antitoxin  to  van-  » 
ity,  a  solvent  of  sentimentality,  a  betrayer  of  hypocrisy, 
satire  may  find  all  the  mission  it  needs  to  be  respectable;  \ 
and  if  it  can  also  acquire  a  degree  of  grace  and  comeliness,  - 
it  may  be  listed  among  the  muses. 

Now  this  spirit  of  humorous  criticism,  sprung  from  in- 
nate prejudice,  nurtured  by  penetrating  observation,  en- 
listed at  least  nominally  under  the  banner  of  righteous- 
ness, and  out  for  conquest,  obviously  must  have  some- 
thing to  conquer; — whether  he  is  a  soldier  fighting  an 
enemy  alien,  or  a  roving  knight,  bound  to  offer  combat  on 
chivalric  grounds,  though  aware  in  his  candid  heart  that 
the  surpassing  loveliness  of  his  lady  is  a  claim  gallantly  to 
be  maintained  rather  than  an  incontrovertible  fact.  In 
either  case,  whether  he  uses  archery  or  artillery,  he  must 
have  a  target;  and  a  student  of  his  tactics  must  under- 
stand what  it  is,  even  better  perhaps  than  he  does  himself. 

Taken  individually,  the  objects  of  satiric  attack  are  le- 
gion, being  no  fewer  than  all  such  victims  of  human  dis- 
pleasure as  may  suitably  come  in  for  jesting  rebuke.  Our 
only  chance  for  any  sort  of  synthesis  is  to  see  first  if  these 
individuals  may  be  grouped  into  classes,  and  next,  if  these 
classes  may  be  generalized  under  some  principle,  dis- 
covered to  be  under  some  supreme  command. 

The  grouping  is  indeed  easily  discernible.  Political 
parties  stand  out,  social  strata,  various  professions  and  in-  I 
stitutions  and  movements.  But  to  look  upon  these  as 
ridiculed  for  themselves  is  to  be  satisfied  with  a  superficial 
view.  The  fault  is  not  in  themselves  but  in  their  stars  that 
they  are  underlings.  What  are  these  evil  stars  that  seem 
in  their  courses  to  fight  against  them  ? 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  21 

The  terms  oftenest  on  the  lips  of  satirists  and  historians 
of  satire  are  Vice  and  Folly.  But  these  fine  large  entities 
are  taken  at  their  face  value  and  given  a  conventional  in- 
terpretation. We  are  not  enlightened  as  to  what  vice  and 
folly  are,  and  can  define  them  only  as  those  things  which 
seem  vicious  and  foolish  to  their  several  opponents.  They 
also  are  among  the  bafflling  subjectivities. 

Juvenal's  conclusion  that  it  is  hard  not  to  write  satire,  y 
from  the  premise  that  the  number  of  fools  is  infinite,  is  said  /\ 
by  Herford  to  be  "  the  fundamental  axiom  of  all  satire." 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  Horace  who  took  the  fool 
for  his  province,  while  his  sterner  successor  rather  special- 
ized on  the  knave.  From  then  on  there  has  been  as  little 
endeavor  to  disentangle  the  two  strands  as  to  define 
them. 

One  of  the  earliest  English  satirists  l  emphasised  the 
knavery;  and  another  2  includes  that  and  folly  in  the  same 
indictment.  Dryden,3  inclined  to  the  serious  Juvenalian 
type,  discriminates  between  positive  and  negative  atti- 
tudes, but  not  between  the  two  stock  objects. 

iSkeltonrCo/ynC/ow*. 

"Of  no  good  bysshop  speke  I, 
Nor  good  priest  I  escrye, 
Good  frere,  nor  good  chanon, 
Good  nonne,  nor  good  canon, 
Good  monke,  nor  good  clerke, 
Nor  yette  of  no  good  werke; 
But  my  recounting  is 
Of  them  that  do  amys." 
2  Barclay:  Preface  to  Ship  of  Fools. 

"This  present  Boke  myght  have  been  callyd  nat  inconvenyently  the  Satyr 
(that  is  to  say)  the  reprehencion  of  foulysshnes.  *  *  *  For  in  lyke  wyse 
as  olde  Poetes  Satyriens  repreved  the  synnes  and  ylnes  of  the  peple  at  that 
tyme  lyvynge;  so  and  in  lyke  wyse  this  our  Boke  represented!  unto  the  iyen  of 
the  redars  the  states  and  condicions  of  men." 
8  Essay  on  Satire. 


22          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Speaking  of  the  narrowed  use  of  the  word  satire  in 
French  and  English,  he  adds, 

"For  amongst  the  Romans  it  was  not  only  used  for  those 
discourses  which  decried  vice,  or  exposed  folly,  but  for  others 
also  where  virtue  was  recommended.  But  in  our  modern  lan- 
guages we  apply  it  only  to  invective  poems,  *  *  *  for  in  Eng- 
lish, to  say  Satire,  is  to  mean  reflection,  as  we  use  that  word  in 
its  worst  sense;  or  as  the  French  call  it,  more  properly,  me- 
disance." 

Defoe  1  adds  to  the  two  a  third,  but  in  a  somewhat 
casual  enumeration: 

"Speak,  Satire;  for  there's  none  can  tell  like  thee 
Whether  'tis  folly,  pride,  or  knavery 
That  makes  this  discontented  land  appear 
Less  happy  now  in  times  of  peace  than  war?" 

Swift2  echoes  the  old  duality: 

"His  vein,  ironically  grave, 
Exposed  the  fool,  and  lash'd  the  knave." 

And  Fielding,3  though  he  actually  finds  good  game  in 
folly,  evidently  considers  vice  the  prime  object: 

1  Trueborn  Englishman. 

2  Verses  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Swift. 
He  adds,  as  to  motive: 

"Yet  malice  never  was  his  aim; 
He  lash'd  the  vice,  but  spared  the  name; 
***** 

His  satire  points  at  no  defect, 
But  what  all  mortals  may  correct; 
For  he  abhorr'd  that  senseless  tribe 
Who  call  it  humour  when  they  gibe: 
***** 

True  genuine  dullness  moved  his  pity, 
Unless  it  offer' d  to  be  witty." 

3  Preface  to  The  Intriguing  Chambermaid:  Epistle  to  Mrs.  Give. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  23 

"  But  while  I  hold  the  pen,  it  will  be  a  maxim  with  me,  that 
vice  can  never  be  too  great  to  be  lashed,  nor  virtue  too  obscure 
to  be  commended;  in  other  words,  that  satire  can  never  rise 
too  high,  nor  panegyric  stoop  too  low." 

He  also  makes  the  same  point  in  a  historical  review: l 

"In  ancient  Greece,  the  infant  muses'  school, 
Where  Vice  first  felt  the  pen  of  ridicule, 
With  honest  freedom  and  impartial  blows 
The  Muse  attacked  each  Vice  as  it  arose: 
No  grandeur  could  the  mighty  villain  screen 
From  the  just  satire  of  the  comic  scene." 

Although  vice  is  now  too  powerful  for  such  censure,  he 
dares  the  lion  in  his  den,  and  comforts  the  virtuous  with 
reassurances: 

"And  while  these  scenes  the  conscious  knave  displease, 
Who  feels  within  the  criminal  he  sees, 
The  uncorrupt  and  good  must  smile,  to  find 
No  mark  for  satire  in  his  generous  mind." 

The  nineteenth  century  is  full  of  straws  still  blowing  in 
the  direction  of  Vice  and  Folly:  such  as  Taine's  2  "Satire 
is  the  sister  of  elegy;  if  the  second  pleads  for  the  oppressed, 
the  first  combats  the  oppressors."  And  Lionel  Johnson  3 
comments  that  Erasmus  "had  something  in  common  with 
Matthew  Arnold:  a  like  satiric  yet  profoundly  felt  im- 
patience with  intellectual  pedantry  and  social  folly." 

We  may,  however,  see  satire  as  opposition,  and  more- 
over opposition  to  vice  and  folly,  and  still  be  taking  for 
granted  that  which  demands  more  probing.  For  even  if 
it  were  so  simple  a  crusade  as  that,  no  crusade  is  as  simple 
as  it  looks,  and  this  one  is  particularly  open  to  suspicion. 

1  Prologue  to  The  Coffee-House  Politician. 

2  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.:  on  Dickens,      -  3  Post  Liminium. 


24          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

It  is  therefore  not  wholly  superfluous  to  ask  why  vice 
and  folly  are  the  favorite  satiric  goals.  Psychologically  it 
would  be  sufficient  to  say  that  it  is  because  anything  a 
man  disapproves  of  naturally  seems  to  him  foolish  if  not 
actually  vicious.  But  socialized  man  cannot  admit  that 
his  reaction  to  anything  is  based  on  mere  temperamental 
prejudice.  Condemnation  of  vice  and  folly  is  of  course 
its  own  justification,  and  humor  is  its  own  reward.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  humorous  condemnation  is  not  al- 
ways applicable  to  these  offenders  against  taste  and  mor- 
ality. Folly  is  sometimes  too  artless  to  be  censured,  and 
vice  is  often  too  serious  to  be  ridiculed.  Evidently  then,  yet 
another  solution  is  needed,  a  least  common  denominator 
that  will  go  into  both,  even  if  it  does  leave  a  remainder. 

Now  it  happens  that  a  body  of  explicit  testimony,  sub- 
stantiated by  a  review  of  satiric  practice,  does  indicate 
the  existence  of  this  unifying  bond,  this  thing  which,  when 
present,  makes  both  vice  and  folly  criticizably  absurd; 
and  its  generic  name  is  deception. 

This  fraudulent  family  has  two  main  branches:  the  in- 
tentional type,  including  hypocrisy  and  humbug;  and  the 
unconscious,  represented  by  sentimentality  and  other 
forms  of  self-befoolment;  besides  a  half-conscious  variety, 
whence  come  vanity,  snobbishness,  superstition,  vul-^\ 
garity,  and  other  children  of  perverted  ambition  and  false/ 
reasoning.  All  these  give  plenty  of  scope  to  the  satirist, 
even  when  we  subtract  some  possibilities  by  the  impor- 
tant qualification  that  not  all  that  deceives  is  ludicrous; 
deception  being  sometimes  too  innocent  and  even  altruistic 
and  sometimes  too  tragic  and  cruel.1 

According  to  this  test,  anything  which  assumes  a  vir- 

1  These  relationships  may  be  suggested  by  a  graphic  diagram.  Not  all  folly 
is  vicious,  though  all  vice  is  foolish.  Not  all  deception  is  either  vicious  or  foolish, 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  25 

tue  when  it  has  it  not  may  draw  satiric  fire.    It  is  the  as- 
sumption itself,  the  pose,  that  furnishes  the  shining  mark 
loved  by  the  satirist^** 
On  this  point  we  again  have  Horatian  testimony: 1 

"  Quid,  cum  est  Lucilius  ausus 
Primus  in  hunc  operis  componere  carmina  morem, 
Detrahere  et  pellem,  nitidus  qua  quisque  per  ora 
Cederety  introrsum  turpis,     *     *     * 

Gascoigne  2  symbolised  by  his  steel  glass  that  which  re- 
flected the  beholders  as  they  were,  not  flattered  as  by  the 
plated  mirror;  and  said  his  effort  was  to  "sing  a  verse  to 
make  them  see  themselves."  He  also  identified  the  root 
of  all  evil  with  hypocrisy; — "So  that  they  seem,  and  covet 
not  to  be." 

Cervantes  3  spoke  of  his  "Herculean  labor"  as  being 
"nothing  more  nor  less  than  to  banish  mediocrity  from  the 
realm  of  Spanish  poetry,  and  to  sweep  from  its  sacred  pre- 
cincts, which  had  become  as  foul  as  an  Augean  stable,  all 
shams,  lies,  hypocrisies,  and  vulgar  baseness  whatsoever." 

But  the  first  to  stress  this  idea  with  discriminating  anal- 
ysis was,  quite  appropriately,  the  first  in  his  own  satirical 
field:4 

though  folly  and  vice  are  for  the  most  part  deceitful.    The  circle  of  the  satirizible 
practically  coincides  with  that  portion  of  the 
deception-circle   which    falls   within    vice   and 
folly,  a  small  margin  being  left  outside  to  safe- 
guard against  inelasticity. 

The  connection  between  these  two  pairs  of 
subdivisions  is  evident;  hypocrisy  belonging 
on  the  whole  to  the  vicious  branch,  and  senti- 
mentality, to  the  foolish. 

1  Satires ;  II,  i. 

2  The  Steele  Glas. 

3  Preface  to  The  Journey  to  Parnassus.    Gibson's  translation. 

4  Fielding:  Tom  Jones. 

The  phrase  omitted  from  the  Dryden  citation  above  is,  "where  the  very 


26          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"The  only  source  of  the  true  Ridiculous  (as  it  appears 
to  me)  is  affectation.  *  *  *  Now  affectation  proceeds 
from  one  of  these  two  causes,  vanyy  or  hypocrisy;  for  as 
vanity  puts  us  on  affecting  false  characters,  in  order  to  pur- 
chase applause;  so  hypocrisy  sets  us  on  an  endeavour  to  avoid 
censure,  by  concealing  our  vices  under  an  appearance  of  their 
opposite  virtues.  *  *  * 

"From  the  discovery  of  this  affectation  arises  the  Ridiculous; 
*  *  *  I  might  observe,  that  our  Ben  Jonson,  who  of  all 
men  understood  the  Ridiculous  the  best,  hath  chiefly  used  the 
hypocritical  affectation." 

He  remarks  that  this  is  more  amusing  than  vanity,  from 
the  sharper  contrast  with  reality,  and  adds: 

"Now,  from  affectation  only,  the  misfortunes  and  calamities 
of  life,  or  the  imperfections  of  nature,  may  become  the  objects 
of  ridicule.  *  *  * 

"The  poet  carries  this  very  far: 

'None  are  for  being  what  they  are  in  fault, 
But  for  not  being  what  they  would  be  thought.'" 

He  concludes: 

"Great  vices  are  the  proper  objects  of  our  detestation,  smaller 
faults  of  our  pity;  but  affectation  appears  to  me  the  only  true 
source  of  the  Ridiculous." 

Fielding's  comment  on  Jonson  is  in  turn  applied  to  him 
by  a  modern  critic:  1 

"All  Fielding's  evil  characters,  it  may  be  remarked,  are 
accomplished  hypocrites;  on  pure  vanity  or  silliness  he  spends 
very  few  of  his  shafts." 

name  of  satire  is  formidable  to  those  persons,  who  would  appear  to  the  world 
what  they  are  not  in  themselves:" 
1  Raleigh:  The  English  Novel. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  2J 

Taine  l  would  find  boi  t/^asy  to  account  for,  on  racial 
grounds: 

"The  first-fruits  of  English  society  is  hypocrisy.  It  ripens 
here  under  the  double  breath  of  religion  and  morality;  we  know 
their  popularity  and  sway  across  the  channel.  *  *  *  This 
vice  is  therefore  English.  Mr.  Pecksniff  is  not  found  in 
France.  *  *  *  Since  Voltaire,  Tartuffe  is  impossible." 

Landor  2  has  Lucian  say: 

"I  have  ridiculed  the  puppets  of  all  features,  all  colours, 
all  sizes,  by  which  an  impudent  and  audacious  set  of  impos- 
tors have  been  gaining  an  easy  livelihood  these  two  thousand 
years.  *  *  * 

"The  falsehood  that  the  tongue  commits  is  slight  in  com- 
parison with  what  is  conceived  by  the  heart,  and  executed  by 
the  whole  man,  throughout  life." 

Meredith's  portrait  of  The  Comic  Spirit  is  applicable  to 
satire,  for  throughout  the  essay  he  gives  to  the  term  comic 
the  connotation  generally  allowed  to  the  term  satiric: 

"Men's  future  upon  earth  does  not  attract  it;  their  honesty 
and  shapeliness  in  the  present  does;  and  whenever  they  wax  out 
of  proportion,  overblown,  affected,  pretentious,  bombastical, 

1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.:  on  Dickens. 

2  Imaginary  Conversations:  Lucian  and  Timotheus. 

Timotheus,  exultant  over  the  Dialogues,  remarks  that  "Nothing  can  be  so 
gratifying  and  satisfactory  to  a  rightly  disposed  mind,  as  the  subversion  of  im- 
posture by  the  force  of  ridicule."  Disappointed,  however,  in  his  assumption 
that  Lucian  is  now  ready  to  embrace  the  true  faith,  which  turns  out  to  be  a 
non  sequiter,  he  accuses  the  inflexible  pagan  of  sacrilege,  ready  to  turn  into 
ridicule  the  true  and  the  holy.  To  which  Lucian  in  turn  replies  "In  other 
words,  to  turn  myself  into  a  fool.  He  who  brings  ridicule  to  bear  against  Truth, 
finds  in  his  hands  a  blade  without  a  hilt.  The  most  sparkling  and  pointed  flame 
of  wit  flickers  and  expires  against  the  incombustible  walls  of  her  sanctuary." 

Lucian  himself,  in  The  Angler,  declares  it  his  business  to  hate  quacks,  jugglery, 
lies,  and  conceit. 


28          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

hypocritical,  pedantic,  fantastica|e  delicate;  whenever  it  sees 
them  self-deceived  or  hoodwinked,  given  to  run  riot  in  idolatries, 
drifting  into  vanities,  congregating  in  absurdities,  planning 
short-sigh tedly,  plotting  dementedly;  whenever  they  are  at 
variance  with  their  professions,  *  *  *  whenever  they  of- 
fend sound  reason,  fair  justice;  are  false  in  humility  or  mined 
with  conceit,  *  *  *  they  are  detected  and  ridiculed." 

Meredith  l  also  reiterates  the  distinction  made  by  Swift 
and  Fielding  in  regard  to  misfortune: 

"Poverty,  says  the  satirist,  has  nothing  harder  in  itself  than 
that  it  makes  men  ridiculous.  But  poverty  is  never  ridiculous 
to  Comic  perception  until  it  attempts  to  make  its  rags  conceal 
its  bareness  in  a  forlorn  attempt  at  decency,  or  foolishly  to 
rival  ostentation." 

And  he  remarks  of  Moliere: 

"He  strips  Folly  to  the  skin,  displays  the  imposture  of  the 
creature,  and  is  content  to  offer  her  better  clothing." 

Of  the  two  forms  of  affectation,  Fielding  chooses  hyp- 
ocrisy as  better  satirical  game,  but  Bergson  2  votes  for  the 
other: 

"In  this  respect  it  might  be  said  that  the  specific  remedy  for 
vanity  is  laughter,  and  that  the  one  failing  that  is  essentially 
laughable  is  vanity." 

Fuess  3  makes  for  the  last  great  poetic  satirist  the  fam- 
iliar conventional  claim: 

"Byron  is  attacking  not  virtue,  but  false  sentiment,  false 
idealism,  and  false  faith.  His  satiric  spirit  is  engaged  in  *  *  * 
tearing  down  what  is  sham  and  pretence  and  fraud." 

1  Essay  on  Comedy.  z  Laughter,  174.  3  Byron  as  a  Satirist,  180. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  29 

Previte-Orton  *  applie:  the  test  to  politics: 

"Finally,  there  is  another  service  political  satires  render, 
which  is  peculiarly  necessary  to  a  government  based  on  discus- 
sion. One  of  the  greatest  evils  in  such  a  state  is  the  presence 
of  mere  words  and  phrases,  and  of  the  vague  Pecksniffian 
virtues.  Now  to  satire  cant  and  humbug  are  proper  game. 
It  brings  fine  professions  down  to  fact,  points  the  contrast 
between  the  commonplace  reality  and  its  tinsel  dress,  and  by 
the  dread  of  ridicule  raises  the  standard  of  plain-dealing. 
Other  means  of  criticism  as  well  act  as  a  check  on  more  oppro- 
brious faults  in  public  life.  But  satire  is  the  best  agent  to  keep  * 
us  free  from  taking  words  for  substance." 

Apparently,  then,  we  may  conclude  that  decer>tioji 
in  some  form  is,  so  far  as  any  one  thing  can  be,  the  basic 
object  of  satire,  or  at  least  is  so  considered  by  those  who 
reflect  upon  it.  But  we  must  admit  here  as  elsewhere  that 
to  recognise  a  phenomenon  is  easier  than  to  account  for  it. 

Not  that  it  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  deception  it- 
self. No  instinct  is  more  fundamental  and  irresistible  than 
that  of  concealment.  The  primary  fear  of  molestation  or 
harm  in  which  it  originates  becomes,  in  a  social  state  of 
sophistication  and  artifice,  fear  of  exposure.  With  in- 
creased development,  such  complex  and  opposing  factors 
as  pride  and  shame,  avarice  and  genemsky^stentation 
and  modesty^  lead  us  to  hidejKmgs.  We  hide  all  sorts  of 
things,  good  ancP&ad;  faultsTVirtues,  deficiencies,  accom- 
plishments, hoardings,  and  charities.  We  hide  from  our- 
selves as  well  as  from  others.  The  left  hand  is  as  a  rule 
not  on  terms  of  confiding  intimacy  with  the  right,  whether 

1  Political  Satire  in  English  Poetry,  240. 

In  his  Temper  of  the  Seventeenth  Century  in  English  Literature,  Wendell  con- 
tributes another  link  to  the  chain  of  evidence: 

"  Sincere  or  not,  satire  is  essentially  a  kind  of  writing  which  pretends  to  un- 
mask pretense." 


30          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

it  is  scattering  seeds  of  kindness -or  getting  into  mischief. 
In  the  mental  realm  the  same  trick  of  camouflage  prevails. 
Out  of  spiritual  cowardice  we  conceal  from  ourselves  the 
disturbing  facts  of  life,  and  purchase  optimism  at  the  easy 
price  of  sentimentalism. 

But  just  why  this  ubiquitous  habit  should  be  the  pecu- 
liar province  of  the  satirist,  is  another  psychological  prob- 
lem; and  as  such,  is  best  reached  through  a  psychological 
solution.  Why  is  there  about  deception  something  in- 
herently repugnant  and  at  the  same  time  automatically 
amusing?  Why  is  our  incorrigible  human  predilection  for 
belonging  to  the  Great  Order  of  Shams  equalled  only 
by  our  incorrigible  human  predilection  for  joyous  ex- 
posure of  others?  The  game  seems  to  be  mutual  and 
perpetual,  and  the  honors  about  even. 

The  repugnance  undoubtedly  comes  less  from  a  noble 
devotion  to  truth  than  from  the  dislike  we  all  have  of  be- 
ing deceived.  Nothing  do  we  discover  with  more  exasper- 
ation, and  admit  with  more  reluctance  than  the  fact  that 
we  have  been  fooled  or  hoodwinked.  It  is  an  experience 
that  fosters  present  irritation  and  future  distrust;  but  one 
which,  from  its  very  nature,  demands  the  retort  ironic 
rather  than  the  lofty  indignation  accorded  to  an  open 
injury.  Most  emphatically  "We  all  hate  fustian  and 
affectation/'  and  any  knavish  trickery,  especially  in 
others. 

The  amusement  arises  from  the  triumph  of  frustrating 
this  attempt  at  deceptive  concealment,  intensified  by  the 
pleasure  in  perceiving  an  incongruity — in  this  case,  be- 
tween the  assumed  and  the  actual — which  is  the  essence 
of  humor.1  The  zest  lies  in  the  endless  sport  of  hide  and 

1  Hazlett,  in  his  essay  on  Wit  and  Humour •,  remarks  that  "it  has  appeared 
that  the  detection  and  exposure  of  difference,  particularly  where  this  implies 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  3! 

seek,  veiling  and  unveiling,  blowing  bubbles  and  prick- 
ing them,  which  is  exhilarating  through  the  play  of  wits 
and  the  fun  of  outwitting.1 

This  would  perhaps  be  a  sufficient  account  were  it  not 
for  a  certain  left-handed  yet  inseparable  connection  of  the 
psychology  of  the  question  with  its  ethics.  Whether  or 
not  an  intruder,  the  latter  has  entered  in  and  firmly  en- 
trenched herself.  When  therefore  she  maintains  that  her 
satiric  discontent  is  divine,  she  must  be  given  a  respect- 
ful hearing;  though  after  it  we  seem  unable  to  concede 
more  than  the  possibility. 

A  lively  enthusiasm  for  showing  up  the  ingenuous  sent- 
imentalist or  the  crafty  hypocrite  may  or  may  not  argue  a 
freedom  on  the  exposer's  part  from  these  or  other  modes 
of  hiding  or  distorting  the  truth;  or  a  disinterested  love 
for  truth  itself.  It  does  go  without  saying  that  real  re- 
spect and  admiration  for  honesty  and  sincerity  is  a  funda- 
mental human  trait,  as  witness  the  glowing  encomiums 
bestowed  on  those  guileless  virtues,  and  it  might  follow 
that  our  unmoral  impulses  are  half  consciously  focussed 
through  a  moral  function.  We  must  have  a  sin  offering; 
and  deceit  is  in  the  most  eligible.  Thus  the  satirist  may^ 
deliberately  or  unthinkingly,  read  deception  into  his  dis- 
approved, in  order  to  have  an  excuse  for  laughter,  just  as 
he  may  read  vice  and  folly  into  his  disliked,  in  order  to 
condemn.  Nevertheless  it  is  possible  to  enjoy  the  process 
of  unmasking  without  making  it  a  corollary  that  masking 
is  wrong  and  therefore  deserving  of  exposure. 

Some  observers  are  more  impressed  with  the  resem- 

nice  and  subtle  observation,  as  in  discriminating  between  pretence  and  practice, 
between  appearance  and  reality,  is  common  to  wit  and  satire  with  judgment 
and  reasoning." 

1  Meredith  characterises  the  chase  of  Folly  by  the  Comic  Spirit  as  conducted 
"with  the  springing  delight  of  hawk  over  heron,  hound  after  fox." 


32          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

blances  among  the  members  of  the  great  human  family, 
and  some  more  sensitive  to  the  differences.  When  a  con- 
sciousness of  this  variance  is  dissolved  in  a  humorous 
solution,  it  precipitates  a  satire.  The  satirist  is  not  always 
a  victorious  Saint  George,  and  the  satirized  a  downed  and 
disgraced  Dragon.  Still,  if  the  Saint  could  be  secularized 
to  the  extent  of  a  mocking  light  in  his  eye,  and  a  taunt- 
ing finger  pointing  at  a  removed  disguise  under  which  the 
Dragon  had  been  masquerading,  we  might  take  the  pic- 
ture as  a  symbol  of  an  ideal  relationship  between  them, 
both  ethically  and  artistically. 

For  there  is  an  ideal  in  this  as  in  all  things  that  have 
variation  and  flexibility;  and,  as  in  them  all,  the  question 
of  quality  is  the  most  important  one.  Without  some 
sort  of  criterion  we  can  form  no  judgments  as  to  value. 
The  points  we  have  been  considering, — what  satire  is  made 
of,  why  and  how  made,  against  what  directed,  and  in  what 
effective,  all  lead  to  the  final  one, — what  is  the  highest 
type? 

The  trend  of  testimony  seems  to  converge  on  three  re- 
quirements for  that  satire  which  would  disarm  criticism 
while  indulging  in  it:  purity  of  purpose,  kindliness  of  tem- 
per, and  discrimination  as  to  objects  of  ridicule. 

The  first  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  reformatory  mo- 
tive. It  means  simply  freedom  from  the  very  affectation 
censured  in  others.  What  it  rules  out  is  not  so  much  the 
railing  to  gratify  one's  spleen,  as  the  pose  of  altrusim  while 
doing  it;  the  grieved  this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you 
attitude  so  particularly  annoying  to  the  castigated.  It 
also  discounts  the  selfish  vanity  which  courts  applause  for 
wit,  regardless  of  the  means  by  which  it  is  won. 

On  this  point  Horace  *  again  heads  the  list.    He  denies 

1  Satires:  I,  IV,  78  ff. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  33 

the  accusation  that  the   satirist   is   spiteful,  and  con- 
tinues: 

"  Liberius  si 

Dixero  quid,  si  forte  jocosius,  hoc  mihi  juris 
Cum  venia  dabis" 

From  the  nature  of  English  satire  up  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  we  do  not  expect,  nor  do  we  find,  much  interest 
in  this  phase  of  it.  Then  comes  Young,1  reviving  the 
Horatian  caution: 

"Who,  for  the  poor  renown  of  being  smart, 
Would  leave  a  sting  within  a  brother's  heart?" 

And  Cowper  2  completes  the  portrait: 

"Unless  a  love  of  virtue  light  the  flame, 
Satire  is,  more  than  those  he  brands,  to  blame; 
He  hides  behind  a  magisterial  air 
His  own  offenses,  and  strips  others  bare; 
Affects,  indeed,  a  most  humane  concern, 
That  men,  if  gently  tutor'd,  will  not  learn; 
That  mulish  folly,  not  to  be  reclaimed 
By  softer  methods,  must  be  made  ashamed;" 

De  Quincey  3  uses  Pope  as  a  horrible  example  of  this 
failing,  contrasting  him  with  the  indignant  Juvenal: 

"Pope,  having  no  such  internal  principle  of  wrath  boiling 
in  his  breast,  *  *  *  was  unavoidably  a  hypocrite  of  the 
first  magnitude  when  he  affected  (or  sometimes  really  con- 
ceited himself)  to  be  in  a  dreadful  passion  with  offenders  as  a 
body.  It  provokes  fits  of  laughter  *  *  *  to  watch  him  in 
the  process  of  brewing  the  storm  that  spontaneously  will  not 
come;  whistling,  like  a  mariner,  for  a  wind  to  fill  his  satiric 

1  Universal  Passion. 

2  Charity. 

3  Literary  Theory  and  Criticism.    The  Poetry  of  Pope. 


34          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

sails;  and  pumping  up  into  his  face  hideous  grimaces  in  order 
to  appear  convulsed  with  histrionic  rage.  *  *  *  As  it  is, 
the  short  puffs  of  anger,  the  uneasy  snorts  of  fury  in  Pope's 
satires,  give  one  painfully  the  feeling  of  a  locomotive-engine 
with  unsound  lungs." 

Whether  these  strictures  are  just  or  not,  the  principle 
back  of  them  is  sound;  and  more  pithily  summed  up  by 
Lander's  x  "Nobody  but  an  honest  man  has  a  right  to 
scoff  at  anything." 

Browning 2  carries  the  idea  a  step  farther,  and  sounds 
a  warning  to  dwellers  in  glass  houses: 

"Have  you  essayed  attacking  ignorance, 
Convicting  folly,  by  their  opposites, 
Knowledge  and  wisdom  ?    Not  by  yours  for  ours, 
Fresh  ignorance  and  folly,  new  for  old, 
Greater  for  less,  your  crime  for  our  mistake!" 

The  demand  for  kindliness  of  temper  may  seem  para- 
doxical, but  for  that  very  reason  it  is  the  more  insistent. 
Being  under  suspicion  of  unkindness,  vindictive  spite, 
retaliation,  satire  must  either  admit  the  charge  or  prove 
the  contrary,  for  the  real  paradox  lies  in  the  highest 
moral  claim  being  made  for  the  literary  genre  of  the 
greatest  immoral  possibilities. 

However,  until  the  modern  humanitarian  cult  came  in, 
it  seemed  content  to  admit  the  charge.  After  Horace, 
with  a  few  isolated  exceptions,  as  Swift 3  and  Cowper,4 

1  Imag.  Conv.  Lucian  to  Timotheus. 

2  Arist.  Apol. 

3  In  spite  of  Cowper's  and  Byron's  assertions  to  the  contrary. 

4  "All  zeal  for  a  reform  that  gives  offense 

To  peace  and  charity,  is  mere  pretense; 

A  bold  remark;  but  which,  if  well  applied, 

Would  humble  many  a  tow' ring  poet's  pride."    (Charity.) 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  35 

satire  seemed  rather  to  cherish  malice  and  glory  in  rude- 
ness, often  mistaking  peevish  scolding  for  noble  scorn. 
Its  keynote  was  "A  flash  of  that  satiric  rage/'  or,  ac- 
cording to  Hall, 

"The  Satire  should  be  like  the  porcupine, 
That  shoots  sharp  quills  out  in  each  angry  line." 

Byron  was  the  last  example  of  both  the  professional, 
concentrated  form  and  the  truculent  mood.  Tennyson  1 
voices  the  new  spirit  of  his  century: 

"I  loathe  it:  he  had  never  kindly  heart, 
Nor  ever  cared  to  better  his  own  kind, 
Who  first  wrote  satire,  with  no  pity  in  it." 

Birrell,2  less  caustic  than  De  Quincey  about  Pope,  still 
uses  him  as  an  instance  of  how  not  to  do  it: 

"Dr.  Johnson  is  more  to  my  mind  as  a  sheer  satirist  than 
Pope,  for  in  satire  character  tells  more  than  in  any  other  form 
of  verse.  We  want  a  personality  behind — a  strong,  gloomy, 
brooding  personality;  soured  and  savage,  if  you  will  *  *  * 
but  spiteful  never." 

Even  the  traits  of  gloom  and  savagery  might  be  dis- 
pensed with,  and  room  made  for  an  infusion  of  sweetness 
and  light.  This  is  implied  in  the  condition  laid  down  by 
Lionel  Johnson: 3 

"To  tilt  at  superstition,  to  shoot  at  folly,  is  seldom  a  grateful 
or  a  gratifying  pursuit,  if  there  be  no  depth  of  purpose  in  it, 
nothing  but  pleasure  in  the  consciousness  of  destructive  power, 
no  feeling  of  sympathetic  pity,  no  tenderness  somewhere  in  the 
heart,  no  cordiality  sweetening  the  work  of  overthrow." 

1  Sea  Dreams.  2  Collected  Essays,  I,  187.  3  Post  Liminium. 


36          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

And  Garnett 1  concludes: 

"Satirists  have  met  with  much  ignorant  and  invidious  de- 
preciation, as  though  a  talent  for  ridicule  was  necessarily  the 
index  of  an  unkindly  nature.  The  truth  is  just  the  reverse." 

Discrimination  as  to  objects  of  satire  has  reference  not 
to  their  nature,  as  foolish,  vicious,  deceitful,  but  to  their 
legitimacy  as  objects.  It  is  a  matter  of  taste  and  justice 
on  the  part  of  the  satirist. 

The  first  definite  reproof  of  heedlessness  on  this  score 
is  given  in  the  memorial  tribute  to  Pope: 2 

"Dart  not  on  Folly  an  indignant  eye: 
Whoe'er  discharged  artillery  on  a  fly? 
Deride  not  Vice:  absurd  the  thought  and  vain, 
To  bind  the  tyger  in  so  weak  a  chain. 

******** 

The  Muse's  labour  then  success  shall  crown, 
When  Folly  feels  her  smile,  and  Vice  her  frown. 

******** 

Let  SATIRE  then  her  proper  object  know, 
And  ere  she  strikes,  be  sure  she  strikes  a  foe. 
Nor  fondly  deem  the  real  fool  confest, 
Because  blind  Ridicule  conceives  a  jest." 

Another  critic  3  of  that  time  utters  a  similar  caution: 

1  Preface  to  Headlong  Hall,  in  the  Aldine  edition  of  Peacock,  40.  In  his 
Essay  on  Comedy,  Meredith  goes  beyond  mere  absence  of  hate: 

"You  may  estimate  your  capacity  for  comic  perception  by  being  able  to 
detect  the  ridicule  of  them  you  love,  without  loving  them  the  less;  and  more  by 
being  able  to  see  yourself  somewhat  ridiculous  in  dear  eyes,  and  accepting  the 
correction  their  image  of  you  proposes,"  72. 

It  is  true  that  on  the  next  page  he  differentiates, — "If  you  detect  the  ridicule, 
and  your  kindliness  is  chilled  by  it,  you  are  slipping  into  the  grasp  of  satire." 
But  he  is  evidently  using  satire  in  the  older,  narrower  sense. 

8  John  Brown's  Essay  on  Satire. 

3  Spectator,  209.    L. 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  37 

"A  satire  should  expose  nothing  but  what  is  corrigible,  and 
make  a  due  discrimination  between  those  who  are,  and  those 
who  are  not  the  proper  objects  of  it." 

The  best  modern  expression  1  of  this  idea  happens  to 
be  an  interpretation  of  a  pioneer  satirist.  And  it  is  dis- 
tinctly modern  in  its  recognition  that  while  the  real  ob- 
ject of  satire  must  be  an  abstraction, — the  sin  not  the 
sinner — it  must,  to  be  artistic,  have  a  concrete  embodi- 
ment,— the  sinner  rather  than  the  sin.  The  Greek  drama- 
tist explains: 

"Yet  spiteless  in  a  sort,  considered  well, 
Since  I  pursued  my  warfare  till  each  wound 
Went  through  the  mere  man,  reached  the  principle 
Worth  purging  from  Athenai.    Lamachos  ? 
No,  I  attacked  war's  representative; 
Kleon?    No,  flattery  of  the  populace; 
Sokrates?    No,  but  that  pernicious  seed 
Of  sophists  whereby  hopeful  youth  is  taught 
To  jabber  argument,  chop  logic,  pore 
On  sun  and  moon,  and  worship  Whirligig." 

But  while  the  good  satirist  must  have  these  assets,  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  possession  of  them  will  guarantee 
good  satire.  It  can  only  be -said  that  without  them  he 
cannot  be  ranked  high,  though,  having  them,  he  may  not 
be  ranked  at  all.  It  may  be  difficult  for  a  Juvenal  not  to 
write  satire,  but  it  is  difficult  for  anyone  to  produce  a  fine 
example  of  this,  as  of  any  other  form  of  art.  No  more 
than  any  art  is  it  exempt  from  a  recognition  of  truth  2  and 

1  Browning:  Aris.  Apol      Cf.  Fielding,  Tom  Jones,  VI,  357,  for  a  similar  dis- 
tinction. 

2  Cf.  Brown's  Essay  on  Satire  for  scorn  of  Shaftesbury's  idea  that  ridicule  is 
the  test  of  truth;  refuted  ironically  in  the  lines, — 


38          SATIRE     IN    THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

even  beauty,  though  its  connection  with  them  is  the  para- 
doxical one  of  drawing  attention  to  their  opposities.  It 
is  a  truism  that  many  things  are  best  understood  and 
appreciated  by  a  portrayal  of  contrasts.  In  this  case  it 
is  a  perception  of  the  congruous  that  is  particularly  con- 
cerned, and  it  is  implied  in  the  satirist's  keen  sense  of  the 
incongruous. 

The  satirist  has  not  only  these  normal  obligations,  but 
some  peculiar  dangers.  He  is  in  as  perilous  a  position 
as  Sir  Guyon  in  his  voyage  to  the  realm  of  Acrasia: 
threatened  by  the  didacticism  that  besets  the  critic,  the 
vulgarity  and  rudeness  that  prey  upon  the  jester,  the 

'  prejudice  and  injustice  that  warp  the  opponent,  the  smug- 
ness that  undermines  the  reformer.  Moreover,  he  has 
his  hampering  limitations.  He  is  forever  confined  to  the 

j  middle  plane  of  life,  shut  out  alike  from  its  sublime 
heights  and  tragic  depths. 

Added  to  this  restriction  in  range  is  another  in  quantity. 
The  nature  of  satire  makes  it  better  adapted  for  the 
trimming  than  the  whole  cloth.  Its  role  in  the  dramatis 
persona  of  literature  is  restricted  to  the  minor  parts,  but 
this  subordination  in  place  does  not  mean  a  negligible 
rank.  The  untrimmed  garment,  the  all-star  cast,  these 
are  not  desirable  even  when  possible.  For  the  accessory 
there  is  also  an  ideal  whose  attainment  is  quite  as  im- 
portant as  though  it  pertained  to  the  main  substance. 

"  Deride  our  weak  forefathers*  musty  rule, 
Who  therefore  smil'd,  because  they  saw  a  fool; 
Sublimer  logic  now  adorns  our  isle, 
We  therefore  see  a  fool,  because  we  smile." 
He  concludes  that  wit  is  safe  only  when  rationalized: 

"  Then  mirth  may  urge,  when  reason  can  explore, 
This  point  the  way,  that  waft  us  to  the  shore." 
(Carlyle  expresses  a  similar  opinion  in  his  essay  on  Voltaire.) 


THE     SATIRIC     SPIRIT  39 

In  the  case  of  satire  such  a  standard  would  call  for  cen- 
sure that  is  candid  and  just,  wit  that  is  spontaneous  and 
refined,  both  actuated  by  sincere  motives,  and  directed 
against  certain  failings  of  humanity  rather  than  against 
the  human  individuals  themselves,  though  these  must 
body  forth  the  abstractions  otherwise  intangible, — the 
combination  producing  an  effect  essentially  truthful  and 
artistic.  That  all  this  can  come  only  from  one  who  is 
more  than  a  mere  satirist  is  axiomatic,  and  indeed  so 
fundamentally  true  that  it  might  be  said  that  the  more  of 
a  satirist  a  man  is  in  quantity,  the  less  is  his  chance  for 
fine  quality. 

The  modern  author  has  conquered  these  requirements 
and  obstacles,  not  by  taking  arms  against  his  sea  of  trou- 
bles, but  by  the  less  intrepid  and  more  diplomatic  method 
of  disowning  his  title.  The  satirist  is  obsolete,  but  the 
satiric  writer,  or  even  better,  the  writer  with  a  satiric 
touch,  is  more  in  evidence  than  ever.  It  is  perhaps  too 
much  of  a  challenge  to  say  that  Shakespeare  is  a  greater 
satirist  than  Aristophanes,  Jonson,  or  Moliere;  but  no 
one  would  deny  the  superior  quality  of  his  smaller  amount. 
The  aroma  of  his  delicate  spice  and  lemon  extract  has 
not  only  lasted  longer  than  their  pepper  and  vinegar,  but 
is  better  relished  by  the  modern  palate.  The  nineteenth 
century  had  no  Shakespeare  to  "stoop  from  the  height 
of  a  serene  intelligence  to  sport  with  satire,"  but  its  best 
satire  came  from  those  who  took  it  least  seriously  and 
insinuated  it  with  least  pomp  and  circumstance.  And 
so  far  from  being  the  most  conspicuous  in  the  satiric 
field,  these  who  are  greatest  in  this  matter  are  also 
greatest  and  best  known  for  other  than  satiric  gifts  and 
accomplishments. 

While  these  humorous  critics  would  be  more  content 


40         SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

than  their  forerunners  with  the  early  dictum  that  satire 
was  "invented  for  the  purging  of  our  minds,"  1  rather 
than  for  the  practical  consequences  sometimes  claimed 
for  it,  yet  they  would  not  adopt  the  suceeding  phrase  of 
the  definition, — "in  which  human  vices,  ignorance  and 
errors,  *  *  *  are  severely  reprehended;"  for  they 
would  qualify  more  carefully  the  objects,  and  abstain  from 
severity  in  their  reprehension. 

This  dividing  line  among  objects  would  make,  how- 
ever, a  scientific  rather  than  an  ethical  bisection.  The 
"stolidly  conscientious  performance"  of  confining  the 
practice  of  satire  to  a  moral  issue,  does  indeed,  as  Dr.  Al- 
den  points  out,2  argue  a  "deficiency  in  wit"  that  marks 
the  Anglo-Saxon  mind.  But  as  the  Englishman  became 
more  cosmopolitan,  he  learned  to  disguise  such  of  his 
innate  solemnity  as  he  could  not  shed.  That  he  has  ab- 
sorbed more  completely  the  more  easily  assimilated  He- 
brew and  Roman  traits,  has  not  prevented  him  from  ac- 
quiring some  also  from  the  Greek  and  the  French.  The 
Victorian  is  naturally  a  multiplex  compound,  and  in  him 
we  see  all  these  elements  in  various  stages  of  conflict 
and  combination. 

1  Heinsius,  in  his  Dissertations  on  Horace.     A  conception  drawn  perhaps  from 
the  Aristotelian  "  purging  of  our  passions  "  through  tragedy. 
*  Rise  of  Formal  Satire  in  England.    49. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   CONFLUENCE 

Our  present  study  is  concerned  with  the  union  of  two 
ancient  streams  of  literature  as  they  come  together  on  the 
fertile  plain  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  marriage  of 
a  satiric  Medway  and  a  fictional  Thames  is  a  happy  Eng- 
lish event,  though  by  no  means  the  first  alliance  between 
these  historic  families.  In  their  long  careers  they  are 
found  sometimes  entirely  separate,  but  very  often  united. 
The  latter  course  works  for  a  decided  mutual  advantage, 
with  a  preponderance  of  gain  accruing  to  satire,  as  fiction 
can  live  without  satire  far  better  than  satire  without  fic- 
tion. 

A  narrative  of  entire  gravity  may  be  a  gracious  and 
splendid  thing;  indeed,  pure  tragedy  is  perhaps  the  highest 
form  of  art.  But  when  satire  is  divorced  from  fiction  it 
must  dispense  with  fiction's  great  contribution,  the  gar- 
ment of  warm  imagination  and  colorful  concreteness;  and 
be  content  with  the  severe  raiment  of  bald  didacticism  and 
chill  abstraction.  In  truth,  satire  has  always  been  not 
only  the  greater  beneficiary  but  the  more  dependent 
partner,  though  what  it  has  in  turn  supplied  is  of  un- 
questionable value.  It  is  like  an  entertaining  but  un- 
equipaged  traveler,  always  asking  for  a  ride.  Even  when 
it  apparently  had  an  establishment  of  its  own  and  was  rec- 
ognized as  a  literary  genre,  it  was  not  independent  with 
the  independence  of  the  lyric,  the  drama,  or  the  treatise, 
but  was  constantly  borrowing  furniture  from  them  all. 

41 


42          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Hence  when  satire  invaded  Victorian  fiction, — or  was 
adopted  by  it, — the  conjunction  brought  its  benefits  to 
both.  The  former  profited  qualitatively  from  the  anti- 
dote furnished  by  creative  construction  to  destructive 
censure,  and  quantitatively  by  the  improvement  result- 
ing from  diminution, — that  subordination  which  is  the 
secret  of  success  with  all  seasoning,  trimming,  and  such 
accessories.  The  latter  gained,  not  so  much  by  the  mere 
infusion  of  pleasantry,  for  that  refreshing  element  has  a 
deplorable  tendency  to  degenerate  into  ill  bred  pertness, 
as  by  the  toning  up  of  the  criticism  inseparable  from  the 
realistic  novel,  and  by  the  pungent  and  dramatic  turn 
given  to  its  didacticism.  "Som  mirthe  or  som  doctryne" 
has  ever  been  the  demand  of  the  Englishman,  and  he 
has  relished  them  best  in  that  happy  unison  supplied  by 
satire. 

Hence  also  the  combination  was  but  a  new  and  more 
consequential  celebration  of  an  old,  traditional  connec- 
tion. From  the  Greek  Menippean  mixture  and  the 
Milesian  tale  the  line  extends,  with  innumerable  ramifi- 
cations into  fabliaux,  burlesques,  allegories,  letters,  and 
characters,  in  prose  and  verse,  to  the  perfected  eighteenth- 
century  product,  whence  the  increasingly  perfected  prod- 
uct of  the  nineteenth  century  immediately  is  derived. 

Like  all  such  associations,  this  one  is  neither  accidental 
on  the  one  hand  nor  consciously  intentional  on  the  other, 
but  is  the  result  of  many  forces  and  influences  set  in  oper- 
ation by  circumstances,  and  available  for  great  effective- 
ness if  rightly  comprehended  and  wisely  used.  In  this 
Victorian  situation  we  are  confronted  with  the  dual  fac- 
tors: a  literary  form  raised  to  tremendous  prestige  by  a  rich 
inheritance  and  an  especial  rapprochement  with  its  own 
times;  and  a  prevailing  temper  of  humorous  criticism 


THECONFLUENCE  43 

which  could  not  fail  to  thrive  under  the  double  stimulus  of 
a  fermenting  environment  about  which  there  were  endless 
things  to  be  said,  and  a  general  liberation  from  external 
control  which  allowed  these  seething  utterances  free  and 
full  play  of  expression. 

Thus  have  all  things  worked  together  for  the  good  of 
the  Victorian  novel.  It  was  fortunate  alike  in  its  endow- 
ment, its  alliances,  and  its  surroundings.  A  period  of  such 
upheaval,  such  introspection,  such  anxious  responsibility, 
and  withal  such  zest  of  life,  all  diffused  through  a  demo- 
cratic atmosphere,  could  best  be  interpreted  by  a  form  of 
literature  which,  besides  being  in  itself  thoroughly  demo- 
cratic, gives  large  scope  for  the  author's  comments  and 
conclusions. 

The  drama  is  an  excellent  reflector,  but  necessarily  im- 
personal; a  dilemma  that  is  dodged  rather  than  solved  by 
the  Shavian  device  of  Prefaces.  The  lyric,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  too  personal  to  be  representative.  And  concen- 
trated exposition  is  admittedly  strong  meat  for  the  intel- 
lectual babes  who  constitute  the  vast  majority,  or  even,  as 
a  steady  diet,  for  children  of  a  larger  growth.  This  does 
not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  novel  is  a  childish  product 
or  plaything;  but  that  its  union  of  the  dramatic  and  di- 
dactic, the  emotional  and  rational,  the  picturesque  and  sig- 
nificant, the  merry  and  sad,  together  with  its  absolutely 
unrestricted  range  in  material,  makes  it  ideal  as  a  popular 
type  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 

A  critic  of  the  time  half  ironically  remarks, — 1 

"The  future  historians  of  literature  *  *  *  will  no  doubt 
analyze  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  explain  how  the  novelists,  more 
or  less  unconsciously,  reflected  the  dominant  ideas  which  were 

1  Leslie  Stephen:  George  Eliot,  67-68. 


44          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

agitating  the  social  organism.  *  *  *  The  novelists  were 
occupied  in  constructing  a  most  elaborate  panorama  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  their  own  times  with  a  minuteness  and 
psychological  analysis  not  known  to  their  predecessors.  Their 
work  is,  of  course,  an  implicit  criticism  of  life." 

With  all  the  encouragement  bestowed  upon  them  the 
Victorian  novelists  could  indeed  do  no  less  than  live  up  to 
their  opportunities.  Not  ad  astra  per  aspera  lay  their 
destiny.  Nothing  more  was  asked  of  them  than  to  re- 
frain from  burying  their  talents,  and  to  this  admonition 
they  were  zealously  obedient. 

The  writers  themselves  supply  striking  inductive  data 
as  to  the  general  diffusion  both  of  fiction  and  satire.  A 
list  of  the  dozen  most  prominent  Victorian  novelists  shows 
that  no  one  of  them  was  wholly  devoid  of  interest  in  pub- 
lic affairs,  and  none  was  entirely  lacking  in  the  satiric 
touch.  On  the  other  hand,  every  one  of  them  saw  more 
on  his  horizon  than  current  events,  and  all  were  something 
more  than  mere  critics  or  humorists  or  even  both. 

They  were  themselves  of  the  Victorian  Age.  Each  one 
might  say  Pars  fui,  if  not  magna.  None  therefore  had  a 
detached  point  of  view,  nor  a  long  perspective.  But 
though  their  vision  was  microscopic  rather  than  telescopic, 
it  was  searching  and  enthusiastic,  and  the  report  it  made 
was  honest  if  not  always  dispassionate.  It  could  hardly 
be  otherwise  for  those  who  were  alive  and  awake  at  a  time 
when  new  information  was  creating  new  ideas,  and  these 
in  turn  were  becoming  dynamic  in  new  movements,  po- 
litical, religious,  educational,  social.  All  these  things  were 
too  tremendous  and  important  to  be  taken  otherwise  than 
seriously.  The  dominant  feeling  was  grave  and  earnest, 
as  one  of  its  interpreters  has  said: 1 

1  Thorndike,  English  Literature  in  Lectures  on  Literature,  268-9. 


•THE     CONFLUENCE  45 

"In  the  Victorian  era,  which  we  have  found  so  neglectful 
of  literary  standards,  Literature  has  been  of  greater  social  and 
ethical  stimulus  than  ever  before.  *  *  *  It  throbs  with  a 
new  sympathy  for  those  who  toil  unceasingly  in  poverty,  and 
a  new  bewilderment  upon  the  realization  that  the  world  which 
is  changing  so  rapidly  is  still  so  full  of  misery  and  hopeless- 
ness. *  *  *  But,  as  the  world  went,  the  main  impulse  and 
the  main  characteristic  of  Victorian  Literature  became  this 
great  sense  of  pity  for  things  as  they  are  and  of  an  imperious 
duty  to  make  them  better." 

But  the  sense  of  pity  was  sometimes  voiced  with  wit, 
and  one  of  the  sharpest  weapons  at  the  service  of  duty 
was  the  shaft  of  ridicule.  With  nothing  to  satirize,  society 
would  be  a  paradise.  With  no  satirists,  it  would  be  rather 
a  dull  inferno.  But  it  is  our  human  world  that  is  purga- 
torial. 

Since  the  purpose  of  our  present  study  is  to  discover  the 
proportion  and  nature  of  the  satiric  element  in  Victorian 
fiction,  to  note  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  work,  and  to 
reach  some  conclusion  as  to  the  total  effect  of  its  presence 
and  use,  it  might  aid  in  clearness  to  subjoin  a  table  of 
names  and  dates  of  the  novelists  with  whom  we  are  con- 
cerned. 

Name  Birth  Period  of  Publication  1.  Death 

Peacock  1785              1816-1861  1866 

Lytton  1803              1827-1873  1873 

Disraeli  1804              1826-1880  1881 

Gaskell  1810             1848-1865  1865 

1  This  theoretically  includes  only  the  novel,  though  the  term  is  used  in  the 
widest  sense.  In  the  cases  of  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Eliot,  and  Meredith,  the 
line  is  rather  hard  to  draw  between  the  novel  and  sketches,  tales,  short  stories, 
and  burlesques.  Peacock,  Lytton,  Disraeli,  and  Butler  force  us  to  make  the 
limits  of  the  novel  decidedly  flexible. 


46          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Name  Birth      Period  of  Publication  Death 

—  Thackeray  1811  1844-1862  1863 

-  Dickens  1812  1837-1870  1870 
Reade  1814  1853-1884  1884 
Trollope  1815  1855-1880  1882 
Bronte  1816  1847-1853  1855 
Kingsley  1819  1848-1871  1875 

—  Eliot  1819  1859-1876  1880 

-  Meredith  1828  1859-1895  1909 
Butler                     1835              1872-1901                             1902 

This  list,  reaching  from  Scott  to  Hardy,  not  inclusive, 
has  been  reckoned  as  a  round  dozen,  but  it  actually 
numbers  a  baker's  dozen.1  The  noteworthy  thing  about 
it  is  that  it  would  probably  be  agreed  upon  as  the  preemi- 
nent list  on  any  count;  so  that  those  who  are  excluded  on 
the  score  of  being  too  consistently  serious  or  romantic,  as 
Yonge,  Collins,  Blackmore,  Henry  Kingsley,  MacDon- 
ald,  would  hardly  be  included  on  the  score  of  quality,  al- 
though some  of  them  might  rival  some  of  the  least  among 
those  chosen  as  members  of  the  satirico-realistic  group. 

A  glance  at  the  preceding  table  reveals  an  obvious 
chronological  division  into  five  parts;  although  the  first 
and  the  two  last  consist  of  one  man  each.  The  second 
contains  only  two  names;  and  their  separation  from  the 
main  group  occurs  at  the  beginning  rather  than  at  the  end, 
for  Lytton's  race  ran  beyond  five  of  those  who  started 

1  If  it  were  desirable  to  eliminate  the  thirteenth  chair,  it  might  be  done 
in  a  number  of  ways.  Peacock  might  be  ruled  out  as  a  contemporary  of  the 
earlier  generation,  as  Gryll  Grange  is  all  that  carries  him  over.  Butler  on  the 
other  hand  belongs  to  the  later,  except  that  Erewhon  appeared  in  the  year  of 
Middlemarch.  As  a  satirist,  Bronte  is  so  near  the  edge  of  the  circle  that  her 
inclusion  at  all  is  questionable.  Since  it  happens,  however,  that  the  year  of  her 
death  coincides  with  that  of  Reade's  first  novel,  we  might  fancy  her  yielding 
a  place  to  him,  so  that  there  were  never  more  than  twelve  at  one  time. 


THECONFLUENCE  47 

later,  and  Disraeli's  beyond  seven.  Of  those,  only  Reade 
published  novels  after  1880. 

This  main  group  is  one  of  those  remarkable  concentra- 
tions in  which  destiny  seems  to  delight.  When  the  second 
decade  of  the  century  gave  to  the  world  eight  great  names 
in  this  field  alone,  and  some  equally  distinguished  ones 
in  others,  it  surely  filled  its  quota  toward  the  advance  of 
civilization. 

Meredith  comes  enough  later  than  this  outpouring  of 
God's  plenty  to  be  classed  by  himself  chronologically, 
especially  as  he  must  be  by  the  character  of  his  work 
also,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  first  novel  belongs  to 
the  same  prolific  year  as  the  first  of  George  Eliot's. 

The  middle  of  the  century  is  thus  also  the  center  of  a 
circle  of  activity  whose  radius  extends  for  about  two  dec- 
ades on  either  side,  passing  thence  into  thinner  aired 
intermediate  zones, — transition  periods  from  the  eight- 
eenth and  to  the  twentieth  centuries,  seasons  whose 
energies  are  potential,  or  spent,  rather  than  vigorously 
kinetic. 

But  this  central  period,  something  more  than  a  genera- 
tion, and  less  than  a  half  century,  is  dynamic  enough. 
It  has  frequently  been  described,  and  its  activities — 
Chartism,  the  Oxford  Movement,  Utilitarianism,  Posi- 
tivism, the  Industrial  Revolution,  Christian  Socialism, 
Darwinism,  Pre-Raphaeliteism — are  an  oft- told  tale.  It 
is  only  to  be  remembered  that  this  was  the  atmosphere 
breathed  by  the  majority  of  our  novelists,  and  these  the 
vital  interests  which  would  concern  them  in  so  far  as 
they  were  concerned  with  the  public  affairs  of  their  time. 

A  review  of  the  satiric  strain  in  literature  gives  an 
interesting  clew  both  to  the  fact  and  the  significance  of 
the  relation  of  satire  to  the  total  literary  product. 


48          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Nor  can  one  be  estimated  independently  of  the  other. 
There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  as  a  pure,  or  mere, 
satirist.  Even  a  saturated  solution  involves  two  ele- 
ments. The  dissolved  substance  must  have  a  medium  to 
be  dissolved  in.  Starting  from  this  point,  we  may  classify 
the  most  conspicuous  names  according  to  this  relation- 
ship. 

There  are  first  the  completely  surcharged.  But  the 
important  matter  is  whether  the  container  is  itself  large, — 
Aristophanes,  Juvenal,  Swift,  Voltaire, — or  of  smaller 
mold  and  less  capacity, — Dunbar,  Skelton,  Smollett, 
Churchill,  Gifford.  To  this  class  come  no  recruits  from 
the  nineteenth  century.  Sceva  indignatio^  no  longer  makes 
verses,  even  when  witticized,  having  been  put  out  of  fash- 
ion by  the  autonomic  humor  which  informs  the  sophisti- 
cated critic  that  of  all  incongruous  things  the  most  incon- 
gruous and  absurd  is  the  satirist  who  takes  himself  seri- 
ously. 

Next  come  those  whose  absolute  amount  of  satire  may 
be  equal  to  that  of  the  preceding,  but  whose  versatile 
interests  make  it  relatively  smaller.  It  is  neither  of  their 
life  a  thing  apart,  nor  yet  their  whole  existence.  Such 
are  Horace,  Cervantes,  Jonson,  Dryden,  Boileau,  Pope, 
Fielding,  Burns,  Byron.  This  class  on  a  smaller  scale  is 
represented  by  Gascoigne,  Wyatt,  Hall,  Donne,  Lodge, 
Addison,  Goldsmith,  Hood,  Moore,  Mark  Twain.  Among 
these  we  find  about  half  of  our  novelists, — Peacock  and 
Butler,  Dickers  and  Trollope,  Thackeray  and  IN^eredith. 

In  the  third  division  satire  is  measured  still  more  by 
the  law  of  diminishing  returns.  It  is  composed  of  those 
who  are  never  thought  of  as  satirists,  not  even  as  satirical, 
and  yet  are  very  far  from  being  innocent.  Such  are  the 
Hebrew  Prophets  and  the  author  of  Job,  Euripides,  Spen- 


THECONFLUENCE  49 

ser,  Shakespeare,  Milton  (in  his  prose),  Johnson,  Scott, 
Shelley,  Browning.  Similar  but  of  lesser  magnitude  are 
Erasmus,  More,  Defoe,  Young,  Cowper,  Blake,  De  Quin- 
cey.  Here  are  .found  the  other  half  of  the  novelists, — 
Lytton,  Disraeli,  Gaskell,  Reade,  Bronte,  Kingsley.  The 
impression  given  by  these  is  not  so  much  a  solution  at 
all  as  of  separate  and  distinguishable  particles:  of  ele- 
ments native  and  yet  not  integral, — like  fish  in  water. 
They  might  be  taken  away,  and  though  the  total  effect 
would  be  very  much  changed,  the  real  character  of  the 
liquid  would  not. 

Quite  the  opposite  of  this  is  the  condition  of  the  fourth 
estate.  Here  the  process  of  amalgamation  is  carried  to  an 
extreme,  one  might  say,  paradoxically,  to  the  vanishing 
point.  It  resembles  the  first  class  in  that  the  satire  is 
pervasive,  and  the  third  in  that  it  is  of  relatively  small 
quantity;  so  small  that  it  hardly  seems  worth  taking  into 
account,  yet  it  could  not  be  abstracted.  If  it  could,  it 
would  leave  a  scarcely  dinimished  but  almost  unrecogniz- 
able remainder.  It  is  not  revealed  so  much  as  betrayed. 
It  seldom  indulges  in  anything  so  bald  as  overt  satire, 
or  so  conscious  even  as  covert  innuendo.  It  is  the  tone 
of  a  personality.  It  is  not  Aristotle  nor  Virgil  nor  Wyclif 
nor  Wordsworth  nor  Tennyson.  It  is  Homer,  Plato, 
Lucretius,  Dante,  Langland,  Burton,  Gibbon,  Sterne, 
Austen,  Arnold,  Carlyle,  Hardy,  Anatole  France.  Among 
the  Victorian  novelists  it  is  George  Eliot. 

To  this  matter  of  quantity  there  is  a  fairly  definite 
relation  of  quality.  The  fact  that  the  largest  quantity 
is  now  a  discarded  type  indicates  that  relation  to  be  one 
of  inverse  proportion.  The  second  and  third  divisions 
evince  hilarity,  sarcasm,  shoddy  flippancy,  or  profound 
wit,  according  to  the  temperaments  of  the  writers. 


5O          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Therein  lies  the  greatest  variety.  The  fourth  occupies  the 
great  field  of  irony.  It  is  the  siccum  lumen,  occasionally 
flashing,  usually  lambent,  smouldering,  gravely  glowing. 

Amid  these  differences  in  kind  and  degree,  the  Vic- 
torian novelists  had  a  sort  of  unity  in  possessing  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  satire,  more  or  less  consciously  realized, 
and  of  themselves  as  satirists.  This  is  not  only  discernible 
in  the  general  air  they  have  of  intending  to  do  it,  but  is 
made  visible  by  remarks  in  the  nature  of  Confessions  of  a 
Satirist  voiced  by  about  half  their  number. 

"Let  those  who  cannot  nicely  and  with  certainty  dis- 
cern," says  Charlotte  Bronte  in  Shirley ,  "the  difference 
between  the  tones  of  hypocrisy  and  those  of  sincerity, 
never  presume  to  laugh  at  all,  lest  they  have  the  miser- 
able misfortune  to  laugh  in  the  wrong  place,  and  commit 
impiety  when  they  think  they  are  achieving  wit." 

Thackeray,1  the  "cynic",  is  the  one  to  reiterate  most 
strongly  the  Pauline  creed  that  love  of  mankind  is  the 
root  of  all  good.  He  remarks  that  humor  means  more 
than  laughter,  and  adds: 

"The  humorous  writer  professes  to  awaken  your  love,  your 
pity,  your  kindness — your  scorn  for  untruth,  pretension,  im- 
posture— your  tenderness  for  the  weak,  the  oppressed,  the  un- 
happy. To  the  best  of  his  means  and  ability  he  comments  on 
all  the  ordinary  actions  and  passions  of  life  almost.  He  takes 
upon  himself  to  be  the  week-day  preacher,  so  to  speak.  Accord- 

1  English  Humorists;  Swift,  2. 

Cf.  Kingsley:  "One  cannot  laugh  heartily  at  a  man  if  one  has  not  a  lurking 
love  for  him."  Two  Years  Ago,  143. 

And  Meredith:  "And  to  love  Comedy  you  must  know  the  real  world,  and 
know  men  and  women  well  enough  not  to  expect  too  much  of  them,  though 
you  may  still  hope  for  good."  Essay  on  Comedy,  40.  Also:  "You  share  the 
sublime  of  wrath,  that  would  not  have  hurt  the  foolish,  but  merely  demon- 
strate their  foolishness."  Ibid.  85. 


THE     CONFLUENCE  51 

ingly,  as  he  finds,  and  speaks,  and  feels  the  truth  best,  we  regard 
him,  esteem  him — sometimes  love  him." 

Trollope  *  agrees  as  to  the  lay-clerical  office: 

"I  have  always  thought  of  myself  as  a  preacher  of  sermons, 
and  my  pulpit  as  one  which  I  could  make  both  salutary  and 
agreeable  to  my  audience." 

Dickens  2  also  claims  the  intent  of  speaking  the  truth 
in  love: 

"Cervantes  laughed  Spain's  chivalry  away,  by  showing  Spain 
its  impossible  and  wild  absurdity.  It  was  my  attempt,  in  my 
humble  and  far-distant  sphere,  to  dim  the  false  glitter  surround- 
ing something  which  really  did  exist,  by  showing  it  in  its  un- 
attractive and  repulsive  truth." 

The  greatest  unamimity  is  as  to  objects.     Peacock  3 

1  Autobiography,  133. 

2  Preface  to  Oliver  Twist,  xv. 

That  Dickens  was  mistaken  as  to  the  real  point  of  Don  Quixote,  does  not  im- 
pair his  argument. 

Thackeray  had  the  same  motive,  of  course,  in  his  ridicule  of  Paul  Clifford 
and  the  sentimental-picaresque;  not  because  it  was  sentimental  or  picaresque, 
but  because  it  was  misleading.  In  that  respect  it  was  he  who  inherited  the 
mantle  of  Cervantes,  as  did  Fielding  before  him  in  his  ridicule  of  Richardson. 

3  "The  vices  that  call  for  the  scourge  of  satire,  are  those  which  pervade  the 
whole  frame  of  society,  and  which,  under  some  specious  pretense  of  private 
duty,  or  the  sanction  of  custom  and  precedent,  are  almost  permitted  to  assume 
the  semblance  of  virtue."    Melincourt,  160.     (And  here  it  is  the  pretense  that 
makes  it  vulnerable.) 

In  the  Introduction,  Maid  Marian  is  described  to  Shelley  as  a  "  comic  romance 
of  the  twelfth  century,  which  I  shall  make  the  vehicle  of  much  oblique  satire  on 
all  the  oppressions  that  are  done  under  the  sun." 

He  became,  however,  so  carried  away  with  the  romance  that  he  lost  sight  of 
the  satire,  except  for  brief  glimpses. 

In  the  Preface  to  Headlong  Hall  (1837  edition)  he  rounds  up  the  current 
follies,  under  the  name  Pretense: 

"  Perfectibilians,  deteriorationists,  statu-quo-ites,  phrenologists,  transcenden- 


52          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

and  Trollope  l  in  conventional  imitation  of  the  old  school 
speak  of  castigating  vice,  but  they  also  in  other  places 
join  the  universal  chorus  against  folly,  and  folly  as  an 
impostor. 

Disraeli  2  comes  in  on  this: 

"Teach  us  that  pretension  is  a  bore.  *  *  *  Catch  the 
fleeting  colors  of  that  sly  chameleon,  Cant,  and  show  what 
excessive  trouble  we  are  ever  taking  to  make  ourselves  miserable 
and  silly." 

Reade  3  adds  a  word: 

"Self-deception  will  probably  cease  with  the  first  blast  of  the 
archangel's  trumpet;  but  what  human  heart  will  part  with  it 
till  then?" 

talists,  political  economists,  theorists  in  all  sciences,  projectors  in  all  arts, 
morbid  visionaries,  romantic  enthusiasts,  lovers  of  music,  lovers  of  the  pic- 
turesque, and  lovers  of  good  dinners,  march,  and  will  march  forever,  pari  passu, 
with  the  march  of  mechanics  which  some  facetiously  call  the  march  of  intellect. 
*  *  *  The  array  of  false  pretensions,  moral,  political,  and  literary,  is  as 
imposing  as  ever;  *  *  and  political  mountebanks  continue,  and  will 

continue,  to  puff  nostrums  and  practice  legerdemain  under  the  eyes  of  the  mul- 
titude; following  *  *  *  a  course  as  tortuous  as  that  of  a  river,  but  in 
a  reverse  process:  beginning  by  being  dark  and  deep,  and  ending  by  being 
transparent."  46-7. 

His  motto  for  Crochet  Castle  is: 

"De  monde  est  plein  de  fous,  et  qui  n'en  veut  pas  voir, 
Doit  se  tenir  tout  seul,  et  casser  son  miroir." 

1  "And  as  I  had  ventured  to  take  the  whip  of  the  satirist  in  my  hand,  I  went 
beyond  the  iniquities  of  the  great  speculator  who  robs  everybody,  and  made 
an  onslaught  also  on  other  vices — on  the  intrigues  of  girls  who  want  to  get 
married,  on  the  luxury  of  young  men  who  prefer  to  remain  single,  and  on  the 
puffing  propensities  of  authors  who  desire  to  cheat  the  public  into  buying  their 
volumes."    Autobiography ,  speaking  of  The  Way  We  Live  Now. 

Of  Framley  Parsonage:  "The  story  was  thoroughly  English.  There  was  a 
little  fox-hunting  and  a  little  tuft-hunting;  some  Christian  virtue  and  some 
Christian  cant.  There  was  no  heroism  and  no  villainy."  Autobiography,  129. 

2  The  Young  Duke,  173. 

8  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  216. 


THE    CONFLUENCE  53 

Thackeray  l  emphasizes  it  in  his  description  of  that 
little  world  in  which  he  had  an  almost  unholy  interest: 

"Vanity  Fair  is  a  very  vain,  wicked,  foolish  place,  full  of  all 
sorts  of  humbugs  and  falsenesses  and  pretensions.  And  while 
the  moralist  *  *  *  professes  to  wear  neither  gown  nor 
bands,  but  only  the  very  same  long-eared  livery  in  which  his 
congregation  is  arrayed;  yet,  look  you,  one  is  bound  to  speak  the 
truth  as  far  as  one  knows  it,  whether  one  mounts  a  cap  and 
bells  or  a  shovel  hat;  and  a  deal  of  disagreeable  matter  must 
come  out  in  the  course  of  such  an  undertaking." 

Later  2  he  takes  it  out  on  Becky  and  her  kind: 

"Such  people  there  are  living  and  flourishing  in  the  world — 
Faithless,  Hopeless,  Charityless;  let  us  have  at  them,  dear 
friends,  with  might  and  main.  Some  there  are,  and  very  suc- 
cessful, too,  mere  quacks  and  fools;  and  it  was  to  combat  and 
expose  such  as  these,  no  doubt,  that  laughter  was  made." 

Dickens  3  puts  it  more  abstractly: 

"Lest  there  should  be  any  well-intentioned  persons  who  do 
not  perceive  the  difference  between  religion  and  the  cant  of 
religion,  piety  and  the  pretense  of  piety,  a  humble  reverence  for 
the  great  truths  of  Scripture  and  an  audacious  and  offensive 

1  Vanity  Fair,  I,  104. 

2  Ibid.,  I,  106. 

Cf.  his  Preface  to  The  Nezvcomes:  "This,  then,  is  to  be  a  story,  may  it  please 
you,  in  which  jackdaws  will  wear  peacocks'  feathers,  and  awaken  the  just 
ridicule  of  the  peacocks,  in  which,  while  every  justice  is  done  to  the  peacocks 
themselves  *  *  *  exception  will  yet  be  taken  to  the  absurdity  of  their 
rickety  strut,  and  the  foolish  discord  of  their  pert  squeaking;"  7. 

3  Preface  to  Pickwick  (1847  edition),  xix. 

Cf.  his  letter  to  Charles  Knight:  "My  satire  is  against  those  who  see  figures 
and  averages,  and  nothing  else — the  representatives  of  the  wickedest  and  most 
enormous  vice  of  this  time — and  the  men  who,  through  long  years  to  come, 
will  do  more  to  damage  the  real,  useful  truths  of  political  economy  than  I  could 
do  (if  I  tried)  in  my  whole  life:"  Letters,  I,  363. 


54         SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

obtrusion  of  its  letter  and  not  its  spirit  in  the  commonest  dis- 
sensions and  meanest  affairs  of  life,  to  the  extraordinary  con- 
fusion of  ignorant  minds,  let  them  understand  that  it  is  always 
the  latter,  and  never  the  former,  which  is  satirized  here.  Fur- 
ther, that  the  latter  is  here  satirized  as  being,  according  to  all 
experience,  inconsistent  with  the  former,  impossible  of  union 
with  it,  and  one  of  the  most  evil  and  mischievous  falsehoods 
existent  in  society." 

The  theme  of  The  tragic  Comedians  is  that  "The 
laughter  of  the  gods  is  the  lightning  of  death's  irony  over 
mortals.  Can  they  have/'  adds  Meredith,  "a  finer  sub- 
ject than  a  giant  gone  fool?"  But  it  is  in  the  Ode  to  the 
Comic  Spirit  rather  than  in  stray  observations  in  the 
novels  or  even  in  the  Essay  on  Comedy  that  the  Mere- 
dithian  satiric  philosophy  is  most  pithily  set  forth.  For 
in  the  myth  of  Momus  and  the  Olympians,  the  mirthful 
satirist  and  the  self-satisfied  divinities  who,  paid  a  heavy 
price  for  their  resentment  of  his  incandescent  frankness, 
we  have  a  symbol  of  what  satire  might  do  if  permitted, 
and  if  not  permitted,  what  penalties  may  descend.  The 
Comic  Spirit  is  apostrophized  as  the  "  Sword  of  Common 
Sense,"  whose  service  and  sport  it  is 

"This  shifty  heart  of  ours  to  hunt." 
Since  man  is  a  deceiver  and  a  self-deceiver, 

"Naming  his  appetites  his  needs, 
Behind  a  decorative  cloak," 

it  is  obvious  that  the  only  cure  for  his  ailment  is  the 
simple  but  drastic  one  of  removing  the  cloak.  So  long 
indeed  as  there  are  masks,  there  will  be  fingers  that  itch 
to  pluck  them  off.  The  time  may  come, — we  can  scarcely 
affirm  that  it  now  is, — when  masks  shall  have  vanished 


THE     CONFLUENCE  55 

from  the  faces  of  a  seraphic  race.  But  in  the  nineteenth 
century  they  were  very  much  in  evidence;  and  quite  as 
palpably  in  evidence  were  the  spying  eyes  and  the  en- 
croaching fingers  of  the  nineteenth-century  satirists. 


PART  II 
METHODS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    ROMANTIC 

The  implication  behind  that  sage  instruction,  "First 
catch  your  hare/*  is  that  after  the  catching  the  rest  will 
be  easy.  But,  admitting  that  the  second  step  cannot  ante- 
date the  first,  we  are  still  confronted  by  the  fact  that  the 
achievement  of  the  first  must  be  followed  by  the  second 
in  order  to  be  rendered  efficacious.  "How  serve  him  up?" 
is  the  next  question. 

It  is  the  question  of  method,  the  problem  of  ways  and 
means,  and  a  most  important  one  it  is  in  the  case  of  satire, 
for  it  is  here  that  the  element  of  humor  finds  its  field  of 
operations.  In  its  cause  and  effect  satire  is  serious,  nom- 
inally at  least.  In  the  connecting  link,  the  means  reaching 
from  design  to  end,  it  must  use  wit  or  humor. 

A  certain  object  is  perceived  by  a  certain  observer  to  be 
ridiculous.  How  is  he  to  make  it  seem  ridiculous  to  other 
observers,  whose  unaided  perception  may  not  equal  his? 
He  is  able  to  do  it  by  drawing  upon  the  common  fund  of 
human  experience  and  idea  in  regard  to  humor.  If  the 
satirist  can  subsume  his  object  under  one  of  the  univer- 
sally recognized  categories,  he  makes  it  ipso  facto  absurd. 
So  automatic  is  this  effect  that  only  the  analytic  specta- 
tor will  stop  to  question  the  justice  of  the  classification. 
Socrates  dangling  in  a  basket,  Volpone  caught  in  his  own 
trap,  Hudibras  gawkily  playing  the  Cavalier,  Atticus 
monoplizing  the  throne  but  fearful  of  pretenders,  Southey 
routing  infernal  legions  by  the  mere  offer  to  read  aloud  his 

59 


6O          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

poem,  Ichabod  Crane  fleeing  when  only  Brom  Bones  pur- 
sued,— these  are  ludicrous  to  the  imagination,  whether  or 
not  the  sentence  is  ratified  by  the  intellect. 

Humoristic  devices  are  so  numerous  as  to  call  for  some 
classification,  the  choice  of  any  one  being  made  at  the  ex- 
pense of  other  possibilities.  The  traditional  cleavage  be- 
tween the  Horatian  and  the  Juvenalian  types  is  charac- 
teristically described  by  Saintsbury: 1 

"From  Horace  and  Persius  downward  there  have  been  two 
satiric  manners: — one  that  of  the  easy  well-bred  or  would  be 
well-bred  man  of  the  world  who  suspends  everything  on  the 
adunc  nose  and  occasionally  scratches  with  still  more  adunc 
claws,  the  other  that  of  the  indignant  moralist  reproving  the 
corruptions  of  the  times." 

But  by  the  nineteenth  century  the  indignant  moralist 
was  considerably  subdued,  even  in  England,  and  his  re- 
proof more  likely  to  be  acidulous  than  acrid.  For  this  rea- 
son some  other  antithesis  would  seem  more  useful  to  our 
present  study;  and  from  the  fact  that  our  satiric  vehicle  is 
made  on  the  two  general  models  known  as  romantic  and 
realistic,  the  same  division  appears  most  workable  to  apply 
to  the  satiric  methods  used  in  fiction.  Both  terms,  how- 
ever, are  too  nebulous  to  be  used  without  the  precaution 
of  stating  the  sense  in  which  they  are  at  present  used.  As 
to  the  former,  this  statement  by  Stoddard  sums  up  the  sit- 
uation: 2 

"To  give  an  exact  definition  of  what  one  means  by  romanti- 
cism, to  give  anything  more  than  a  vague  idea  of  the  notion  one 
intends  to  convey  when  he  uses  the  word  romantic,  to  give  a 
single  definite  conception  to  a  reader  by  the  use  of  the  word 
romance,  is  impossible." 

1  The  Later  Renaissance,  113.  2  Evolution  of  the  English  Novel,  120. 


THE     ROMANTIC  6l 

The  difficulty  about  realism  is  not  so  much  ambiguity 
as  the  question  of  its  very  existence.  This,  however,  need 
not  concern  us  here,  as  there  is  no  question  of  its  nonex- 
istence  in  Victorian  fiction.  Whether  or  not  pure  unadul- 
terated realism  is  a  myth  was  to  the  Victorians  a  postulate 
of  no  moment,  for  they  had  no  use  for  it  in  any  case.  No 
stage  of  theirs  would  ever  be  set  for  a  Madame  Bovary  or  an 
Old  Wives'  'Tale.  But  while  they  looked  upon  their  art  as 
akin  to  painting  rather  than  photography,  they  prided 
themselves  on  their  fidelity  to  human  character  and  the 
great  truths  of  human  life.  To  them  the  romantic  meant 
the  fantastic  and  incredible,  while  the  realistic  signified  the 
sane  and  sober,  the  possible  if  not  the  actual;  and  in 
this  sense  we  use  the  terms. 

To  these  two  divisions,  it  is  necessary  to  add  a  third  as 
a  sort  of  tertium  quid,  for  the  ironic  method  is  important 
enough  to  deserve  some  special  treatment,  although  not 
correlative  with  the  others.  It  is  conscious  indeed  of  its 
aristocratic  superiority  to  them,  although  it  cannot  main- 
tain itself  independently  but  must  be  allied  to  one  or  the 
other. 

Of  the  dozen  names  on  the  roll  of  Victorian  satiric  novel- 
ists about  half  are  found  in  the  list  of  the  romantico-satir- 
ical.  They  seem  to  come  in  pairs,  and  for  the  sake  of  sym- 
metry and  clearness  may  be  so  grouped.  The  first  pair 
are  the  most  distinguished  contributors  to  this  section, — 
Peacock  and  Butler,  standing  at  the  two  chronological  ex- 
tremes. The  second  pair  furnish  a  medium  amount,  and 
are  themselves  forerunners  to  the  main  group,  though 
their  fantastic  productions  are  forty  years  apart, — Lytton 
and  Disraeli.  The  third  pair  are  of  least  account  here,  but 
are  of  especial  importance  in  the  realistic  field, — Thack- 
eray and  Meredith. 


62          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Altogether  this  half  dozen  men  produced  nearly  two 
dozen  items  of  the  romantico-satiric  order,  none  of  which 
could  be  called  novels  in  the  strict  sense,  yet  all  of  which 
are  worthy  of  being  included  in  this  list,  because  of  the 
light  they  throw  on  the  characteristics  of  the  romantic 
method  in  satire.  The  largest  amount,  both  actually  and 
relatively,  is  supplied  by  Peacock,  for  his  seven  tales  rep- 
resent the  bulk  of  his  own  output.  The  smallest  is  Lyt- 
ton's,  represented  by  only  one,  and  that  an  aftermath  of 
a  prolific  and  versatile  energy.  Disraeli  threw  off  three 
skits,  like  Thackeray's  half  dozen  and  Meredith's  two,  in 
being  preliminary  to  later  and  more  substantial  work. 
Butler's  two,  on  the  contrary,  though  forming  only  a  frac- 
tion of  his  stops  of  various  quills,  are  the  most  inevitably 
associated  with  his  name,  the  pair  indeed  whereby  his 
name  is  known. 

The  list  covers  a  period  of  eighty-five  years,  though  it  is 
prolonged  over  a  half  century  only  by  the  interval  of  thirty 
years  between  Erewhon  and  its  sequel.  The  rest  are  fairly 
compact,  except  for  Peacock's  Rip  Van  Winkle  sleep  be- 
tween Crochet  Castle  and  Gryll  Grange.  A  dated  table  is 
appended  for  the  convenience  of  a  bird's-eye  view.1 

*i8i6  Headlong  Hall 

1817  Melincourt     (also  A r onhanger  Abbey) 

1818  Nightmare  Abbey 
1822  Maid  Marian 

1828  The  Voyage  of  Captain  Popanilla 

1829  The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin 
1831     Crochet  Castle 

1833  Ixion,  and  The  Infernal  Marriage 

1839  Catherine 

1841  The  Yellowplush  Papers 

1845  The  Legend  of  the  Rhine 

1847  Novels  by  Eminent  Hands 

1849  The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond 

1850  Rebecca  and  Rowena 


THEROMANTIC  63 

Returning  now  to  our  first  parallel,  Peacock  and  Butler, 
we  find  the  parallelism  to  be  rather  complete,  manifesting 
itself  in  character,  destiny,  and  product. 

The  destiny  of  both  lay  in  a  mean  that  was  not  golden. 
Their  annals  were  the  long  and  simple  of  the  fairly  well  to 
do.  Neither  knew  the  exhilaration  that  comes  from  pros- 
perity and  downright  good  luck;  neither,  the  depression  of 
bitter  struggle  or  disaster.  The  current  of  Peacock's  prog- 
ress was  retarded  by  the  comparative  poverty  that,  like 
Tennyson's,  postponed  his  marriage;  and  that  of  Butler 
was  obstructed  by  his  family's  opposition  to  his  unpardon- 
able preference  for  a  secular  career.  If  the  son  of  a  clergy- 
man and  the  grandson  of  a  bishop  could  not  see  his  clerical 
duty  and  do  it,  there  was  no  help  for  it,  he  must  go  to  New 
Zealand.  But  to  banish  a  youthful  radical  was  only  to 
set  him  free;  and  to  allow  him  a  perspective  and  a  fresh 
viewpoint  was  to  bring  down  upon  orthodoxy  an  infinite 
deal  of  mischief.  "It  was  the  England  that  he  saw  with 
new  eyes,"  says  his  biographer  Harris,  "after  his  return, 
that  awakened  his  restless,  satiric  vigour.  He  reacted  to 
the  English  scene  as  no  one  else  in  his  century  had  reacted 
before."  1 

By  temperament  Peacock  and  Butler  were  both  solitary, 
pervaded  by  a  gentle  melancholy,  and  permeated  with  love 
of  classic  lore.  But  Peacock's  sadness  could  take  the  ironic 
Jonsonian  turn.  Quite  appropriately  did  he  choose  "Your 

1855  The  Rose  and  the  Ring 

1856  The  Shaving  of  Shagpat 

1857  Farina 
1861  Gryll  Grange 

1871  The  Coming  Race 

1872  Erezvhon 

1901     Erezvhon  Revisited 
1  Samuel  Butler,  Author  of  Erezvhon,  65. 


64          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

true  melancholy  breeds  your  perfect  fine  wit,"  as  the  motto 
for  Nightmare  Abbey.  Butler's  persiflage,  however,  covers 
a  more  real  and  permanent  pessimism,  perhaps  because 
it  is  directed  against  the  spectacle  of  the  wilfully  blind 
leading  the  born  blind,  rather  than  against  a  lot  of 
"sentimentalists,  chasers  after  novelty,  bilious  malcon- 
tents." l 

As  was  natural,  neither  was  acclaimed  by  the  populace, 
and  neither  cared.  Peacock  had  little  concern  for  the 
British  public,  which  might  like  him  or  not,  as  it  pleased; 
and  Butler  was  content  to  write  for  the  coming  gener- 
ation, in  whose  appreciation  he  placed  a  not  unjustified 
confidence.  Both  could  afford  to  publish  at  their  own  ex- 
pense and  were  willing  to  do  so. 

But  in  spite  of  their  apparent  detachment  from  local 
affairs,  and  preoccupation  with  the  past,  perhaps  indeed 
for  that  very  reason,  these  two  thoughtful  scholars  were 
able  to  observe  their  environment  keenly  and  judge  it 
shrewdly.  It  was  the  total  environment  that  interested 
each  one,  his  own  Zeitgeist,  of  which  neither  approved. 
Peacock  rebelled  against  the  futile  ferment  and  restless 
experimenting  of  the  first  half  of  the  century;  Butler  pro- 
tested against  the  torpid  acquiescence  and  smug  compla- 
cency of  the  second. 

These  attitudes  represent  the  chief  contrast  between 
them.  Peacock  was  a  calm  soul,  caught  in  a  vortex.  He 
could  not  be  expected  to  like  it.  Butler  was  a  specula- 
tive one,  pent  in  a  self-satisfied  halcyon.  He  could  not 
like  that.  What  each  would  have  been  if  exchanged  in 
time  with  the  other,  it  were  idle  to  guess.  But  it  was  no 
irony  of  fate  that  made  it  the  congenial  mission  of  one  to 

1  Draper:  Social  Satire  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  Modern  Language  Notes, 
XXXIV,  i. 


THE     ROMANTIC  65 

banter  his  age  into  calming  down,  and  of  the  other  to  prick 
his  into  waking  up. 

An  additional  difference,  and  the  main  one,  is  that  But- 
ler is  the  bigger  man  in  every  way  more  searching  and 
earnest,  more  constructive,  more  versatile,  more  profound. 
An  additional  resemblance  is  that  their  fiction  is  so  entirely 
in  the  romantic  field  1  that  they  alone  of  all  on  this  list 
will  not  come  up  for  consideration  when  we  reach  the  other. 

Peacock's  novels 2  form  probably  the  most  mono- 
morphic  little  group  to  be  found  in  literature.  His  seven 
fantasies  have  the  strong  family  resemblance  of  the  seven 
vestal  maidens  in  Gryll  Grange.  Six  of  the  Pleiades  ap- 
peared in  a  compact  series  within  a  fifteen-year  period; 
and  the  apparently  lost  sister  joined  the  constellation 
thirty  years  later  than  the  latest  preceding  one. 

Two  of  them,  Maid  Marian  and  'The  Misfortunes  of 
Elphiny  are  in  historic  costume,  and  thus  afford  a  chance 
for  the  inverted  satire  that  comes  from  a  contrast  be- 
tween past  and  present,  not  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter. 
The  other  five  are  all  domiciled  in  contemporary  English 
house  parties;  in  Hall,  Court,  Abbey,  Castle,  or  Grange. 
These  are  not,  however,  the  habitations  of  the  conven- 

1  With  the  exception  of  The  Way  of  All  Flesh;  another  instance  of  Butler's 
wider  range. 

2  The  word  novel  must  of  course  be  stretched  if  it  is  to  include  this  set  of 
fantastic  fiction.     But  that  is  easily  done  by  accepting  Chesterton's  dictum: 
"Now  in  the  sense  in  which  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  epic,  in  that  sense  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  novel."    Charles  Dickens,  1 14. 

The  other  alternative  is  the  one  taken  by  Mrs.  Oliphant:  "We  use  the  word 
adventurer  advisedly,  for  we  cannot  regard  Peacock's  entry  into  the  field  of 
fiction  as  by  any  means  an  authorized  one.  One  cannot  help  feeling  that  he 
did  not  want  to  write  novels,  but  that  he  found  that  he  could  not  get  at  the 
public  in  any  other  way;  *  *  *  The  consequence  is  that  his  novels 
are  not  novels  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word."  Victorian  Age  of  English 
Literature,  16. 
Cf.  Shaw,  of  whose  dramas  a  similar  statement  might  be  made. 


66          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

tional  citizen.  They  are  "Headlong,"  "Nightmare," 
"  Crochet."  They  harbor  all  sorts  of  whimsies  and  fads. 
Those  assembled  dine,  drink,  and  talk.  Between  meals 
they  have  a  few  adventures,  not  recounted  for  their  own 
sake,  but  that  of  the  additional  talk  they  will  bring  forth.1 
Though  the  repartee  of  these  dramatized  Imaginary  Con- 
versations is  always  at  concert  pitch,  it  harmonizes  with 
the  whimsically  theatrical  setting;  and  the  toute  ensemble 
edifies  while  it  sparkles,  like  a  set  of  fireworks  displaying 
maxims  of  intellectual  wit  as  they  explode. 

The  characters  themselves  wear  their  very  names  as 
v  satiric  labels.  Mr.  Feathernest,  Mr.  Dross,  Mrs.  Pin- 
money,  the  Honorable  Mr.  Listless,  Sir  Oliver  Oilcake, 
the  Reverends  Caster,  Grovelgrub,  Vorax,  are  ticketed 
after  the  fashion  inherited  from  the  Morality  Plays,  a 
device  that  distills  a  quaint  mediaeval  odor  on  the  nine- 
teenth-century air,  and  persists  only  in  some  of  Trollope's 
minor  characters. 

Of  all  these  people  exploiting  all  their  "humours"  Pea- 
cock is  the  ever  amused  spectator.  He  speaks  ironically 
through  the  voice  of  the  artlessly  ambitious  Squire 
Crochet: 2 

"The  sentimental  against  the  rational,  the  intuitive  against 
the  inductive,  the  ornamental  against  the  useful,  the  intense 
against  the  tranquil,  the  romantic  against  the  classical;  these 
are  great  and  interesting  controversies,  which  I  should  like,  be- 
fore I  die,  to  see  satisfactorily  settled." 

It  is  because  of  this  effect  of  inconsequent  raillery, 
doubtless,  that  Peacock  appears  to  lack  humanity,3  and 

1  "  The  desideratum  of  a  Peacockian  character  is  that  he  shall  be  able  to  talk." 
Freeman:  Life  and  Novels  of  Peacock,  233. 

2  Crochet  Castle,  35. 

3  "He  has  knowledge,  wit,  humour,  technical  skill,  cleverness  in  abundance, 


THEROMANTIC  67 

to  laugh  without  responsibility.1  But  one  feels  that  such 
criticisms  would  not  have  ruffled  the  twinkling  serenity 
of  his  placid  spirit;  that  he  would  not  have  deplored  the 
loss  of  power  nor  demurred  at  the  penalty.  He  was  a 
born  sportsman.  The  hunting  was  good.  Pleasure  to 
him  was  in  pursuit  more  than  possession.  Having  had 
the  fun,  he  would  willingly  give  away  his  bag  of  game  be- 
fore he  went  home. 

One  turns  with  an  especial  interest  to  the  belated  Gryll 
Grange  to  see  what  change  there  may  be  thirty  years 
after,  but  finds  little  more  than  the  natural  mellowing 
influence  of  time.  He  is  indeed  "satirist  to  the  last," 
albeit  he  is  disposed  to  use  "more  oil  and  less  vinegar."  2 

If  Peacock  is  Horatian,  without  the  Roman's  sense  of 
realism,  Butler  is  more  of  a  Juvenal,  as  the  latter  might 
have  been,  perhaps,  had  he  lived  under  Victoria  instead 
of  Domitian.  The  wind  of  invective  is  now  tempered, 
not  to  the  shorn  lamb,  but  to  the  modern  prejudice 
against  the  rudeness  of  tempests  unmitigated  by  sun- 
shine. 

Butler's  publications,  beginning  two  years  after  Pea- 
some  genius,  he  is  a  keen  observer,  a  caustic  critic.  What  he  lacks  is  humanity, 
just  that  which  is  the  essence  of  the  greatness  of  the  great  humourists — Cer- 
vantes, Rabelais,  Shakespeare."  Walker:  Lit.  of  the  Victorian  Era,  618.  (He 
explains  that  humanity  in  work  is  meant,  not  of  character.) 

1  "  But  because  he  laughed  without  responsibility  he  belongs  less  with  the 
writers  of  power  than  with  those  of  whom  laughter  has  exacted  a  great,  as  of  all 
laughter  exacts  a  certain,  penalty."    Van  Doren,  Life  of  Peacock,  281. 

(One  could  wish  the  nature  of  this  "penalty"  had  been  elucidated  a  bit,  in- 
stead of  being  entirely  taken  for  granted.  In  any  case,  it  must  be  largely  sub- 
jective, and  therefore  a  thing  which  exists  only  by  being  felt.) 

2  The  phrases  are  Van  Doren's  and  Walker's  respectively.    Cf.  Garnett: 

"  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  satire  of  Gryll  Grange  is  very  Archilochian.  The 
author  has  lost  the  power  of  raising  a  laugh  at  the  objects  of  his  dislike,  and 
merely  assails  them  with  a  genial  pugnacity,  so  open,  honest,  and  hearty  as 
inevitably  to  conciliate  a  certain  measure  of  sympathy."  Introduction. 


68          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

cock's  had  ended,1  extended  through  the  next  half  cen- 
tury, The  Way  of  All  Flesh  and  Notebooks  being  posthu- 
mous. But  the  three  decades  bracketed  by  the  two  Ere- 
whons  were  the  fertile  ones.  Through  them  flowed 
steadily  a  stream  of  many  currents;  satiric,  scientific 
(mainly  controversial),  classic,  critical,  descriptive,  ex- 
pository, musical,  and  artistic.  Of  all  these  volumes  only 
three  can  be  classed  as  fiction,  and  one  of  those  falls  in 
the  other  group.  Our  present  interest  centers  upon  Ere- 
wbon  and  its  sequel. 

There  is  no  more  effective  satiric  machinery  than  that 
of  the  Foreign  State,  or  Adventures  among  Strange  People. 
It  may  take  the  form  of  a  serious  though  perhaps  fan- 
tastic conception  with  incidental  satire,  as  in  Utopia, 
New  Atlantis,  The  Coming  Race,  Modern  Utopia;  or  a 
travesty  of  these,  an  inverted  pyramid,  made  grotesque 
by  the  dominating  satire,  though  none  the  less  freighted 
with  serious  intent,  as  Gulliver,  Journey  from  This  World 
to  the  Next,  Erewbon. 

From  the  fact  that  The  Coming  Race  and  Erewbon  may 
be  cited  as  examples  of  the  same  literary  genus,  though  of 
different  species,  comes  the  suggestion  that  the  real  com- 
plement of  Butler  is  Lytton.  It  does  happen  that  they 
furnish  the  only  two  instances  on  our  list  of  the  exercise 
of  this  particular  kind  of  creative  fancy. 2  Lyt ton's  tale 
pictures  a  positive  ideal,  which  satirizes  our  inadequate 
reality  by  acting  as  a  foil  to  it.  Butler's  narrative  por- 
trays a  supposed  reality,  of  which  the  visitor  does  not 
approve;  and  his  comments  satirize  our  accepted  reality 

1  With  The  First  Canterbury  Settlement,  in  1863. 

2  The  coincidence  that  gave  the  public  The  Coming  Race  in  1871,  and  Erewhon 
in  1872  brought  the  charge  of  a  possible  plagiarism  in  the  latter.    If  the  absurd 
notion  that  Butler  needed  any  light  borrowed  from  Lytton,  is  worth  expelling, 
Butler's  own  candid  statement  about  it  should  be  sufficient  for  the  purpose. 


THEROMANTIC  69 

by  a  subtle,  indirect  reflection.  Our  race  placed  beside 
the  "coming"  one  merely  looks  small,  inferior,  incomplete, 
yet  all  it  needs  is  growth.  But  if  the  barrier  could  be 
leveled  between  our  country  and  the  one  Over  the  Range, 
the  two  would  confront  each  other  and  see  their  own 
images,  not  as  in  a  glass  darkly  but  as  in  a  brilliant  yet 
tricky  and  distorting  mirror.  Our  actual  beliefs  and 
practices,  shorn  of  the  verbal  illusions  we  have  spun 
around  them,  and  pushed  to  their  logical  conclusions, 
would  become  the  naked  reductio  ad  absurdum  we  view 
in  the  Ere^whonian  philosophy  of  illness,  crime,  science, 
religion,  life,  and  death.1 

In  Erewbon  Revisited  we  see  a  mental  sequence  even 
more  interesting  than  the  dramatic  sequel.  Erewbon  was 
followed  the  very  next  year  by  Tbe  Fair  Haven.  The 
former  supplies  the  stage  setting,  the  latter  the  central 
idea,  whose  combination  makes  the  Revisit  a  seemingly 
artless  but  really  astounding  tour  de  force ,  an  uncanny 
offspring  of  logic  and  fancy. 

Given  the  original  situation  and  the  climax  that  closes 
the  Erewhonian  adventure,  given  considerable  study  and 
meditation  on  the  strange,  enshrouded  origin  of  the  reli- 
gion which  possessed  the  author's  part  of  the  world, 
given  a  speculative  dream  as  to  what  might  have  happened 
in  his  fabricated  autobiography  after  the  event,  given 
the  Butlerian  mind,  patient  to  track  and  quick  to  spring, 
and  the  result  is  as  inevitable  as  a  theorem.  One  scent, 
and  the  proficient  hound  is  off,  literally  hot  on  the  trail, 
nor  does  he  halt  till  Hanky  and  Panky,  the  credulous 

1  Carman  says  of  Erewhon,  "Few  good  books  have  so  many  faults,  and  yet 
it  remains  the  one  enduring  satire  of  the  nineteenth  century."  Samuel  Butler,  3  2. 

(Whether  the  of  means  directed  against  or  produced  by,  the  verdict  is  un- 
doubtedly valid.) 


7O          SATIRE     IN    THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

mob,  Sunchildism  itself,  are  fairly  run  down  and  given 
a  good  fright,  though  finally  let  off  with  a  shaking  that 
leaves  them  limp. 

The  dramatic  canvas  on  which  this  satiric  design  is 
drawn  is  worthy  a  Cervantes,  a  Swift,  or  a  Defoe;  a 
beautiful  example  of  the  "grave,  impossible,  great  lie," 
absorbing  if  not  convincing.  Butler's  stories,  more  than 
any  in  this  group,  show  constructive  art;  length  that  is 
enough  and  not  too  much,  sufficient  swiftness,  coherence, 
and  climax.  They  are  fanstajJ£  but  not  flimsy.  The 
imagination  is  captivated,  as  always,  by  the  introduction 
to  a  strange,  new  land;  the  intellect  is  aroused  by  the 
significance  of  the  panorama  rapidly  unfolding;  the  imp 
of  mischief  that  dwells  in  all  normal  human  hearts  is 
delighted  at  the  deft  overthrow  of  certain  conventional 
idols,  now  shown  to  be  ugly,  inane,  and  clay  from  the  feet 
up;  and  all  this  through  a  concrete,  realistic  medium  that 
can  be  visualized  and  lived  in.  We  share  the  excitement 
of  finding  and  crossing  the  range,  of  the  capture  and 
imprisonment  of  the  "foreign  devil"  who  is  at  least  a 
dare-devil,  of  his  later  success,  and  astounding  elopement. 
We  sympathize  with  Mr.  Nosnibor,  voluntarily  fined  and 
flogged;  and  we  feel  quite  at  home  in  the  Musical  Banks 
and  the  Law  Courts. 

In  the  sequel  we  renew  old  acquaintances  and  make 
some  new  ones.  We  admire  the  executive  ability  of 
Yram,  seconded  by  that  of  her  able  son  George.  We 
participate  in  the  suspense  at  the  Dedication  Ceremony, 
are  relieved  after  the  dinner  table  council,  and  finally  well 
satisfied  when  the  Bridgeport  schemers  are  discomfited 
but  nobody  Blue-Pooled. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  raconteur,  romantic  as  well  as 
realistic,  to  beguile  his  audience  into  acquiescence  even  of 


THE     ROMANTIC  71 

the  incredible.  But  the  romancing  satirist  has  the  anom- 
alous task  of  creating  a  story  good  enough  to  be  its  own 
reward  and  then  not  allowing  it  to  be.  It  must  have 
all  the  air  of  being  an  end  in  itself  the  while  it  is  being 
made  the  means  to  another  end.  This  adroit  manipula- 
tion whereby  the  idea  appears  subordinate  to  the  plot, 
although  the  reverse  is  the  case,  is  a  point  in  which  Butler 
surpasses  the  others  on  our  list  and  ranks  with  the  highest 
at  large.1 

But  the  idea  itself  was  a  premature  blossom,  and  the 
winds  of  March,  though  late  Victorian,  were  ruthless. 
About  that  time,  however,  it  was  the  much  more  massive 
figure  of  Ibsen  that  happened  to  stand  in  the  main  cur- 
rent of  the  .blasts,  and  Butler  was  merely  blown  aside 
and  left  until  Shaw  and  the  Twentieth  Century  came  along 
and  picked  him  up.  One  of  his  recent  biographers  has  a 
serious  time  trying  to  establish  him  as  the  laws  of  chro- 
nology would  dictate,  and  finally  decides  it  cannot  be 
done: 2 

"How  is  it  possible  to  fit  a  man  like  Butler,  *  *  *  into 
any  system,  *  *  *  how  are  we  to  classify  one  who,  above 

1  One's  astonishment  that  it  was  Meredith  who  had  the  honor  of  rejecting 
the  manuscript  of  Erewhon,  submitted  to  Chapman  and  Hall,  is  exceeded  only 
by  the  astonishment  at  the  reason  given, — that  it  was  a  philosophical  treatise, 
not  likely  to  interest  the  general  public.    One  would  hardly  accuse  this  critic 
of  a  conservative  reluctance  to  expose  the  public  to  iconoclastic  bacilli,  though 
he  had  not  yet  become  the  author  of  Beauchamp's  Career,  nor  would  one  suppose 
his  "public"  to  be  composed  entirely  of  tired  business  men  and  sentimental 
school  girls.    There  remain  the  two  cruxes  in  the  history  of  satire:  failure  of  the 
satirist  Thackeray  to  appreciate  the  satirist  Swift,  and  of  the  satirist  Meredith 
to  appreciate  the  satirist  Butler.     If  they  prove  anything  it  is  the  diversity 
among  satirists. 

2  Harris:  Samuel  Butler,  Author  of  Erewhony  13. 

Cf.  Chesterton's  whimsical  remark  that  "the  best  definition  of  the  Victorian 
Age  is  that  Francis  Thompson  stood  outside  it." 


72          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

all  others,  belonged  to  no  school,  was  traceable,  it  may  fairly 
be  said,  to  no  influence  at  all  direct  in  character,  looking  back 
to,  and  fitting  in  with,  none  of  those  particular  habits  of  thought 
at  any  rate  in  the  age  just  preceding  and  merging  into  his  own? 
On  an  external  view,  of  course,  it  might  be  maintained  that 
Butler  harmonized  with  the  solid,  scientific  background  of 
Victorian  thought — harmonized  with  it,  yet  was  not  of  it. 
Again  *  *  *  one  might  quite  easily  say  that  Samuel  Butler 
stood  outside  the  Victorian  system.  And  this  would  be  the 
truest  description  of  him." 

The  parallel  noted  above  between  the  next  two  on  the 
list,  Lytton  and  Disraeli,  is  more  applicable  to  their  work 
in  the  realistic  field  than  in  this,  for  the  reason  already 
stated,  that  Lytton's  one  contribution,  The  Coming  Race, 
is  more  akin  to  Butler's,  both  in  date  and  design. 

Accident  rather  then  enterprise  led  to  the  discovery  of 
Lytton's  Utopian  people,  the  Vril-ya,  for  they  inhabit  the 
concave  inner  surface  of  our  own  planet,  and  are  to  be 
reached  only  through  a  subterranean  chasm  leading  down 
from  the  depths  of  a  mine.  The  citizens  of  this  highly 
cultivated  nation  regard  the  English  intruder  as  a  primi- 
tive barbarian,  and  despise  him  for  his  ignorance  and 
his  crude,  carnivorous  habits.  Deciding,  however,  to  spare 
his  life  and  risk  his  presence  until  proved  contaminating 
and  pernicious,  they  proceed  to  educate  him  by  means  of 
the  Vril  Trance,  a  sort  of  telepathic  radio-activity.  The 
process  is  mutual,  except  that  they  accomplish  more, — • 
"partly  because  my  language  was  much  simpler  than 
theirs,  comprising  far  less  of  complex  ideas;  and  partly  be- 
cause their  organization  was,  by  hereditary  culture,  much 
more  ductile,  and  more  readily  capable  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge than  mine."  l 

1  The  Coming  Race,  47. 


THEROMANTIC  73 

Being  adopted,  the  invader  is  treated  with  indulgent 
condescension,  nicknamed  Fish,  a  froglet,  (in  allusion  to 
the  Great  Batrachian  Theory,  that  humans  sprang  from 
frogs,  or,  according  to  one  branch  of  the  school,  degen- 
erated from  them),  and  allowed  to  roam  around  with  a 
child,  who  is  about  his  equal  in  intellect.  All  goes  well 
until  the  politely  tolerated  guest  has  the  temerity  to  fall 
in  love  with  a  native  maiden.  This  means  death,  by  the 
painless  Vril  method  (a  marvelous  application  of  electric- 
ity), in  order  to  prevent  the  disgrace  of  so  uneugenic  an 
alliance;  and  the  calamity  is  averted  only  by  the  skill 
and  resourcefulness  of  the  lady  herself,  who  manages  to  re- 
turn the  unwelcome  wooer  to  his  native  outer  clime.  This 
is  made  possible  through  the  use  of  wings,  another  inven- 
tion of  this  advanced  people.1 

The  story  has  considerable  picturesqueness,  nor  does  it 
fail  in  point.  The  Modern  Utopia  of  Wells  is  anticipated  in 
the  emphasis  on  sanitation  and  material  welfare.  As  in 
Looking  Backward,  crime  is  eliminated  through  the  elim- 
ination of  poverty  and  disease.  The  dramatic  conclu- 
sion is  that  this  underground  people  are  to  be  the  coming 
race,  against  whom  we  must  be  prepared  if  we  would  not 
by  them  be  conquered  and  exterminated.  The  philosoph- 
ical conclusion,  however,  is  the  old  paradox,  the  inescap- 
able dilemma  of  stagnant  perfection.2 

1  Women  were  the  wooers  and  choosers  in  this  feministic  community,  but  the 
problem  of  feminism  was  apparently  solved  by  the  practice  of  voluntary  re- 
linquishment  of  wings,  by  the  feminine  wearers,  after  marriage,  and  a  strict 
devotion  to  the  domestic  life. 

2  "And  where  a  society  attains  to  a  moral  standard  in  which  there  are  no 
crimes  and  no  sorrows  from  which  tragedy  can  extract  its  aliment  of  pity  and 
sorrow,  no  salient  vices  or  follies  on  which  comedy  can  lavish  its  mirthful  satire, 
it  has  lost  its  chance  of  producing  a  Shakespeare,  a  Moliere,  or  a  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe."    The  Coming  Race,  230. 


74          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Disraeli's  Popanilla  was  a  jeu  d  'esprit  of  his  youth, 
and  develops  an  opposite  situation  from  that  of  the  pre- 
ceding. Instead  of  the  Britisher  abroad,  he  pictures  the 
foreigner  in  England,  thus  affording  us  a  chance  to  see  our- 
selves as  others  see  us.1 

The  mechanism  by  which  this  new  scrutiny  is  brought 
to  bear  upon  our  old  establishments  is  well  worn  and  fa- 
miliar, but  has  some  novelty  in  the  application.  A  sailor's 
chest  is  washed  ashore  on  a  remote  island,  and  found  by 
one  of  the  aborigines,  Popanilla,  who  becomes  inoculated 
with  ambition  through  perusal  of  some  documents  dis- 
covered therein.  He  immediately  organizes  a  proselyting 
campaign,  but  encounters  too  much  opposition  from  a  re- 
calcitrant public  to  make  much  headway.  The  people  are 
well  content  with  their  present  peaceful  existence,  and 
quite  averse  to  receiving  the  serpent  of  aspiration  in  their 
idyllic  though  socially  sophisticated  Garden  of  Eden. 
They  are  provokingly  obtuse  even  to  the  argument  that 
"  they  might  reasonably  expect  to  be  the  terror  and  aston- 
ishment of  the  universe,  and  to  be  able  to  annoy  every  na- 
tion of  any  consequence."  2  Finally  to  settle  the  trouble 
caused  by  the  convert's  tactless  propaganda,  which  has 
had  the  lamentable  effect  of  inducing  the  young  men  to 
desert  society  for  politics,  the  king  orders  the  disturber 
of  the  peace  to  be  set  adrift,  and  bids  him  farewell  with 
this  encouraging  prophecy:  3 

"As  the  axiom  of  your  school  seems  to  be  that  everything 
can  be  made  perfect  at  once,  without  time,  without  experience, 


1  After  the  manner  of  Defoe's  Turkish  Merchant:  the  Conduct  of  Christians 
Made  the  Sport  of  Infidels,  and  others  of  this  type. 

2  Popanilla,  380.     The  ensuing  debate  is  made  the  peg  for  some  vivacious 
burlesque  on  Parliamentary  speeches. 

*Ibid.,  385. 


THE     ROMANTIC  75 

without  practice,  and  without  preparation,  I  have  no  doubt, 
with  the  aid  of  a  treatise  or  two,  you  will  make  a  consummate 
naval  commander,  although  you  have  never  been  at  sea  in  the 
whole  course  of  your  life." 

This  is  not  exactly  the  destiny  of  the  involuntary  voy- 
ager, but  his  luck  is  good.  In  due  time  he  lands  on  the 
shores  of  Vraibleusia,  and  forthwith  meets  Mr.  Skindeep, 
an  instantaneous  guide  and  friend,  if  not  a  philosopher, 
whom  he  accompanies  with  implicit  trust,  "for,  having 
now  known  him  nearly  half  a  day,  his  confidence  in  his 
honour  and  integrity  was  naturally  unbounded."  l 

As  Popanilla  becomes  introduced  to  the  best  people 
of  Hubbadub,  the  capital,  the  resources  of  his  own  coun- 
try arouse  interest,  and  an  expedition  of  vast  commercial 
enterprise  is  headed  for  the  Isle  of  Fantaisie.  Failure  to 
find  it  precipitates  a  panic  and  leads  to  the  imprisonment 
of  its  representative,  for  exciting  hopes  under  false  pre- 
tenses. However,  a  happy  ending  is  secured  by  a  legal 
coup  d'etat^  and  a  solution  of  all  problems  announced  by 
Mr.  Flummery  Flam,  who  has  discovered  that  "it  was 
the  great  object  of  a  nation  not  to  be  the  most  powerful, 
or  the  richest,  or  the  best,  or  the  wisest,  but  to  be  the  most 
Flummery-Flammistical."  2 

In  Disraeli's  two  little  classical  burlesques,  published 
five  years  after  Popanillay  still  another  device  is  used. 
There  is  neither  an  Englishman  in  Italy,  nor  an  Italian 
in  England,  but  the  ancient  stage  of  Greek  mythology  is 
made  the  background  for  a  thinly  disguised  modern  sa- 
tiric drama.  Familiar  characters  and  incidents  are  seen 
masquerading  in  equally  familiar  costumes  and  scenes,  but 
the  former  are  local  and  current,  and  the  latter  revived 
from  a  far  past. 

1  Popanilla,  394.         2  Ibid.,  459.    The  whole  is  in  ridicule  of  Utilitarianism. 


76          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

There  is  none  of  Browning's  seriousness  in  Disraeli's 
interpretation  of  Ixion.  His  story  is  utilized  because  it 
offers  tempting  chances  for  saucy,  allusive  comment  on 
mundane  affairs.  A  journey  through  space  inevitably  sug- 
gests the  humor  of  proportion;  but  Ixion  and  Mercury 
give  us  not  the  grave  irony  of  Byron's  Cain  and  Lucifer, 
nor  the  rollicking  yet  pensive  mirth  of  Mark  Twain's  Cap- 
tain Stormfield.  They  are  content  with  clever  jocularity. 

For  instance,  as  they  graze  a  certain  star,  Ixion  inquires 
who  live  there.  "  Some  low  people  who  are  trying  to  shine 
into  notice/'  is  the  haughty  reply.  'Tis  a  parvenu 
planet,  and  only  sprung  into  space  within  this  century. 
We  do  not  visit  them."  l 

During  his  brief  but  splendid  sojourn  on  Olympus  the 
guest  is  postured  as  a  complacent,  insolent,  Barry  Lyndon 
sort  of  rascal,  who  makes  himself  perfectly  at  home  in  the 
divine  dining  and  drawing  rooms  (which  are,  of  course, 
conducted  according  to  the  British  code  of  etiquette),  ful- 
fills Cupid's  prediction  that  he  will  write  in  Minerva's  al- 
bum, though  he  does  manage  to  escape  her  "Platonic  man- 
trap," carries  on  his  intrigue  with  the  Queen  of  Heaven 
in  the  Don  Juan  manner,  and  meets  his  detection  and  pun- 
ishment with  supercilious  assurance  and  a  final  triumphant 
taunt. 

The  Infernal  Marriage  of  Proserpine  to  Pluto  intro- 
duces a  disturbing  element  into  the  ancien  regime  of  Hades. 
The  new  and  influential  bride  stirs  up  a  terrible  political 
turmoil  by  interfering  in  the  matter  of  Orpheus  and  Eury- 
dice,  and  the  consequence  is  quite  disastrous.  The  con- 
servative Fates  and  Furies  are  so  incensed  that  they  neg- 
lect their  disciplinary  duties,  whereby  the  radical  Sisyphus, 
Tantalus,  and  Ixion  obtain  a  respite  from  torture  and  a 

1  Ixion,  272. 


THEROMANTIC  77 

dangerous  opportunity  to  talk  politics.  The  phrases 
"Ministry  Out/'  "Formation  of  New  Cabinet/'  are  ban- 
died about.  Finally  a  change  of  scene  is  prescribed  for  the 
Queen.  Her  departure  is  celebrated  by  an  elaborate  ban- 
quet and  a  magnificent  procession,1  and  we^left  to  infer 
that  the  future  belongs  to  the  reactionaries/ 

We,  however,  follow  the  fortunes  of  Proserpine,  who 
dwells  for  a  season  in  Elysium,  after  a  visit  en  route  to  the 
dethroned  Saturn,  who  discusses  with  her  The  Spirit  of 
the  Age.  Elysian  society  is  of  course  the  English  of  Dis- 
raeli's set;  gay,  graceful,  complacent,  and  malicious.  The 
finest  gentleman  there  is  Achilles;  the  worst  cad  is  ^Eneas, 
who  would  fain  make  up  with  the  now  popular  Dido,  but 
being  repulsed,  must  content  himself  with  becoming  head 
of  the  Elysian  saints  and  president  of  a  society  to  induce 
Gnomes  2  to  drink  only  water. 

In  form  these  last  two  productions  belong  to  the  general 
division  of  burlesque.  There  are  also  touches  of  travesty 
in  Peacock.3  But  the  main  instances  of  this  type  of  the 
grotesque  are  found  in  the  two  writers  who  filled  in  this 
line  the  interval  betwen  the  last  of  Disraeli's,  in  1833,  and 
the  last  of  Peacock's,  in  1861.  During  the  forties  and 
first  half  of  the  fifties  stood  Thackeray,  monopolist  of  par- 
ody and  caricature.  Immediately  following  came  the  two 
contributions  of  Meredith  to  satiric  persiflage.  In  both 
cases  this  fantastic  stuff  formed  the  preliminary  to  the  real 
work,  being  merely  the  romantic  avenue  by  which  two  of 
the  greatest  realistic  satirists  came  into  their  own  kingdom. 

It  happens,  therefore,  that  though  the  quantity  of  this 

1 A  prominent  feature  of  this  is  a  white  ass  (the  Public)  which  the  prime 
minister  leads  by  the  nose. 

2  The  laborers. 

3  These  two  are  alike  in  their  handling  of  sparkling  dialogue. 


78          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

early  product  is  sizable  enough,  its  rank  is  comparatively 
low.  It  is  overshadowed  by  the  others  on  the  list  because 
in  it  the  fun  and  nonsense  is  predominant  and  the  critical 
element  so  slight  as  to  be  negligible;  and  it  is  overshad- 
owed still  more  by  the  more  mature  genius  of  the  authors 
themselves. 

It  is  natural  that  the  burlesque  should  have  been  a  fa- 
vorite satiric  mode  from  Aristophanes  to  Rostand  and 
Shaw.  The  wit  it  requires  is  imitative  rather  than  crea- 
tive, and  its  appeal  is  instantaneous. 

It  is  also  natural  that  it  should  manifest  itself  at  thejbe- 
ginning  of  a  writer's  career,  and  form  a  prelude  to  greater 
achievement.  This  is  the  case  for  good  and  sufficient 
psychological  reasons.  In  youth  the  exuberant  and  un- 
disciplined spirit,  not  yet  checked  by  the  reins  of  reality, 
riots  in  the  glory  of  extravagance;  the  inventive  faculty 
is  awake  but  unfurnished  by  experience  with  material 
for  original  creation;  the  critical  scent  is  keen  but  un- 
practiced,  and  impatient  of  sober,  qualified  judgment.1 
Such  a  condition  is  prime  for  the  production  of  a  Love's 
Labour  s  Lost,  a  Joseph  Andrews ,  a  Northanger  Abbey, 
a  Pickwick,  a  Barry  Lyndon,  a  Shaving  of  Shagpat;  to  be 
followed  by  Twelfth  Night,  Tom  Jones,  Emma,  David 
Copperfield,  Vanity  Fair,  The  Egoist. 

Thackeray's   apprenticeship  at  this  desk  was  rather 

1  Walker's  dictum  {Victorian  Literature,  700)  that  "Good  burlesque  is  im- 
possible except  through  sound  criticism,"  is  an  instance  of  the  dangerous  half 
truth.  The  sounder  the  criticism  the  better  the  burlesque,  to  be  sure,  but  only 
as  criticism:  as  burlesque  it  may  be  highly  successful  in  spite  of  some  critical 
unsoundness.  Indeed,  it  must  necessarily  contain  the  element  of  injustice  that 
inheres  in  all  exaggeration, — the  very  foundation  of  burlesque  and  caricature. 

Moreover,  Walker's  conception  of  the  burlesque  is  indicated  when  he  calls 
Rebecca  and  Rowena  "  perhaps  the  best  burlesque  ever  penned."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  is  not  only  far  from  that  preeminence,  but  it  is  in  form  actually  less  of 
a  burlesque  than  most  of  the  others  under  consideration. 


THEROMANTIC  79 

unduly  prolonged,  covering  about  half  the  period  of  his 
literary  activity;  and  its  output  is  difficult  to  segregate 
on  account  of  the  ambiguous  description  of  much  of  his 
early  work.  But  from  the  large  mass  of  sketches,  essays, 
skits,  stories,  perhaps  half  a  dozen  may  be  selected  as 
being  fairly  within  the  limits  of  satiri co-romance. 

Two  of  them,  the  Hoggarty  Diamond  and  the  Yellow- 
plush  Papers,  are  on  the  border  line,  included  here  only 
because  too  exaggerated  and  irresponsible  to  be  otherwise 
classed.  The  same  might  be  said  of  Barry  Lyndon,  which 
is  not  far  from  being  a  real  novel.  Yet  perhaps  none  of 
these  are  more  "grotesque"  than  some  phases  of  legiti- 
mate fiction.  Much  of  their  humor  comes  from  the  dra- 
matic monologue  device.  Five  are  roughly  definable  as 
burlesques:  three — Catherine,  A  Legend  of  the  Rhine,  and 
I'he  Rose  and  the  Ring,  of  types;  the  other  two,  Novels  by 
Eminent  Hands,  and  Rebecca  and  Rowena,  of  individuals; 
yet  here  again,  classification  is  misleading,  as  these  lat- 
ter are  versus  the  forms  of  certain  productions  rather  than 
their  authors. 

Meredith's  Farina  is  an  interesting  companion  piece  to 
Thackeray's  Rhine  Legend,  both  having  a  Teutonic  and 
chivalric  background,  and  one  might  perhaps  find  a 
closer  parallel  there  than  in  the  one  chosen  by  Moffat, 
who  traces  "reminiscences  of  Peacock  in  the  fantastic 
element  which  occasionally  crops  up,"  in  Meredith,  and 
points  out  that  the  idea  underlying  Farina  and  Maid 
Marian  is  "substantially  the  same — an  attempt  to  re- 
produce with  gentle  satire,  the  medieval  romance  of  sen- 
timent and  gay  adventure."  It  is  true,  however,  that 
A  Legend  of  the  Rhine  differs  from  both  these  in  its  mock- 
ing parade  of  anachronisms  and  telescoped  chronology. 
It  was  "many,  many  hundred  thousand  years  ago"  that 


8O          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Thackeray's  German  knight  was  pricking  o'er  the  plain, 
but  it  was  in  the  time  of  Richard  the  Lion-Hearted,  and 
"on  the  cold  and  rainy  evening  of  Thursday,  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  October."  In  addition  to  his  full  armor  he  was 
equipped  with  an  oiled  silk  umbrella  and  a  bag  with  a 
brazen  padlock. 

On  a  subsequent  adventure  he  halts  at  a  wayside  shrine 
covered  with  "odoriferous  cactuses  and  silvery  magnolias," 
and  recites  "a  censer,  an  ave,  and  a  couple  of  acolytes 
before  it."  A  victim  of  his  mighty  lance  wishes  for  a 
notary-public  to  take  down  his  dying  deposition.  And  a 
lost  champion  is  advertised  for  in  the  Allgemeine  Zeitung. 

The  Shaving  of  Shagpat  out-Herods  Herod  in  Arabian 
Nightism,  and  is  not  devoid  of  satiric  pith,  but  we  are 
expressly  forbidden  by  the  author  himself  to  allegorize 
his  geyser  of  ebullient  mirth.  The  humor  is  Rabelaisian — 
or  American — in  its  pure  love  of  size;  it  floats  in  a  gigan- 
tic, inflated  balloon,  to  which  a  small  basket  of  mental 
cargo  is  attached.  In  this,  however,  is  wrapped  up  the 
very  important  secret  that  continuous  laughter  releases 
one  from  enchantment  and  restores  one's  true  form. 

The  romantic  satirist  must  have,  like  any  other  com- 
pound, certain  more  or  less  inconsistent  traits.  There 
must  be  the  inventive  wit  of  romance  plus  the  shrewd 
logic  of  satire.  Yet  this  rare  combination  does  not  in- 
sure the  best  satiric  results.  Indeed  the  contrary  is  more 
likely  to  be  the  case,  as  the  union  at  best  is  somewhat 
adventitious. 

Then,  too,  there  must  be  a  degree  of  exaggeration,  with 
the  strain  on  our  credulity  so  evenly  distributed  that  it 
is  not  felt.  The  sound  sense  that  satire  calls  for  1  must 

1  "Heroes  and  gods  make  other  poems  fine; 

Plain  Satire  calls  for  sense  in  every  line."    Young:  Universal  Passion. 


THE     ROMANTIC  8l 

maintain  her  operations,  the  while  she  is  masquerading 
as  arrant  nonsense. 

Finally  there  is  the  dilemma  encountered  by  the  drama- 
tist,— the  necessity  of  concentrating  high  lights  as  life 
never  does,  yet  preserving  sufficient  effect  of  dullness  and 
vapid  inanity  to  simulate  reality  as  we  know  it. 

The  various  kinds  of  artifice  employed  in  this  artificial 
process  are  all  found  in  the  examples  on  our  list.  Re- 
moteness of  time  lends  illusion  to  Maid  Mariany  Legend 
of  tie  Rhine,  Farina;  remoteness  of  place,  to  The  Coming 
Race,  and  the  Erewhons;  non-human  characters,  to  Melin- 
court,  Ixion,  Shaving  of  Sbagpat;  anomalous  situations,  to 
Misfortunes  of  Elpbin  and  Popanilla.  Some  are  able  to 
combine  them  all,  notably  Lytton  and  Butler.1  Some, 
on  the  other  hand,  manage  to  create  a  maximum  impression 
with  a  minimum  use  of  the  spectacular. 

Peacock,  for  instance,  never  leaves  England  nor  gives 
us  any  but  English  characters,  quiet  if  not  actually 
subdued,  and  usually  unexceptionable  in  behavior. 
Disraeli  is  really  as  circumscribed.  He  apparently  trans- 
ports us  to  Heaven,  Hades,  some  unsuspected  isle  in  the 
far  seas,  but  he  actually  conveys  all  these  to  the  isle 
where  he  was  born.  Thackeray  and  even  Meredith  keep 
strictly  to  terra  firma. 

If  it  were  desirable  to  make  comparisons  with  a  view 

1  In  one  of  Lytton's  first  volumes  is  an  observation  interesting  as  perhaps 
the  germ  from  which  the  plan  of  The  Coming  Race  was  developed. 
Vincent,  the  philosopher  of  the  story,  remarks.  (Pelham,  57) : 
"There  are  few  better  satires  on  a  civilized  country  than  the  observations  of 
visitors  less  polished;  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  civilized  traveller,  in  describing 
the  manners  of  the  American  barbarians,  instead  of  conveying  ridicule  upon 
the  visited,  points  the  sarcasm  on  the  visitor;  and  Tacitus  could  not  have 
thought  of  a  finer  or  nobler  satire  on  the  Roman  luxuries  than  that  insinuated 
by  his  treatise  on  the  German  simplicity." 


82          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

to  determining  whether  any  particular  ingredient  made 
for  success  in  this  sort,  we  might  observe  the  connection 
between  originality  and  exaggeration  in  their  relation  to 
effectiveness.  Evidence  from  the  data  seems  to  indicate 
that  satiric  value,  estimated  by  weight  and  pertinence 
of  ideas,  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  amount  of  inventive 
wit;  but  in  irregular  or  even  inverse  ratie  te  extravaganza 
or  caricature. 

For  example,  the  general  ©rder  ef  both  satiric  and  con- 
structive excellence,  is  approximately  as  follows, — listed 
in  an  ascending  series:  Meredith,  Thackeray,  Lytton, 
Disraeli,  Peacock,  Butler.  But  to  reach  a  climax  of 
pure  fantasy  we  would  pass  from  Thackeray  through 
Peacock,  Disraeli,  Butler,  and  Lytton,  to  Meredith.  Ex- 
aggeration does  not  seem,  therefore,  to  inhere  in  satire 
though  it  may  enhance  it. 

The  chief  advantage  of  the  fantastic  is  that  it  gives 
unfettered  play  to  whatever  fancy  the  mind  is  endowed 
with;  and  it  enlists  a  naturally  too  serious  Criticism 
under  the  brilliant  banner  of  Wit.  That  its  attractions 
are  many  is  proved  by  its  distinguished  history;  for  en- 
rolled among  the  members  of  this  versatile  society  are 
such  names  as  Reynard  the  Fox,  Romance  of  the  Rose, 
i-  Piers  Plowman,  Don  Quixote  JDunciad,  ^Gulliver,  Don  Juan. 

Few  on  our  list  deserve  comparison  with  these;  none 
perhaps  except  Erewhon.  Peacock's  name  might  have  a 
place,  not  for  any  one  tale  but  for  the  toute  ensemble. 
What  one  of  Disraeli's  biographers  1  says  of  Popanilla, 
that  it  is  "a  work  of  the  same  kind  as  Swift's  Gulliver's 

1  Mill :  Disraeli,  the  Author,  Orator,  and  Statesman,  20. 

He  adds, — "although  we  cannot  claim  for  it  the  merit  of  that  matchless 
production,  still,  regarding  it  as  a  work  of  a  very  young  man,  it  is  to  our  thinking 
one  of  infinite  promise." 


THEROMANTIC  83 

Travels"  is  true  enough,  but  would  be  more  to  the  point 
if  the  Travels  had  been  confined  to  Laputa. 

Not  only  are  our  modern  instances  comparatively  light 
in  quality,  but  restricted  in  range.  The  fable,  for  ex- 
ample, is  not  represented  at  all,  nor  the  allegory,  though 
both  forms  have  had  a  sort  of  revival  in  even  more  recent 
times.  These  deficiencies,  if  such  they  are,  are  easily 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  in  the  nineteenth  century 
realism  (in  the  liberal  sense)  was  having  its  day,  that  it 
had  taken  especial  possession  of  the  Victorian  novel, 
particularly  in  its  satiric  aspect,  so  that  such  scattered 
fantasies  as  we  have  may  be  regarded  as  the  crumbs  from 
an  opulent  table. 

The  marks  of  the  satiric  extravaganza  are  wit,  inven- 
tion, and  exaggeration,*  In  a  general  way  the  opposites 
of  these  may  be  called  respectively  humor,  interpretation, 
and  exposure;  and  it  may  be  premised  that  these  last 
will  be  found  the  characteristics  of  satiric  realism. 

Another  contrast  that  may  be  anticipated  is  that  when 
romance  is  used  as  a  satiric  vehicle  it  is  built  expressly 
for  that  purpose  and  carries  its  passenger  in  solitary  state; 
while  realism  is  a  public  carry-all,  in  which  this  fare  is 
allowed  a  place  along  with  the  others. 

Whether  further  generalization  as  to  relative  effective- 
ness is  possible  is  a  question  that  must  be  deferred  until 
after  the  discussion  of  the  complementary  type. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    REALISTIC 

Realism  in  Victorian  fiction,  as  we  need  only  to  be  re- 
minded, means  not  strictly  that  which  is,  but  liberally 
that  which  might  be.  Its  field  is  nominally  the  Actual 
but  it  encroaches  unhesitatingly  on  the  domain  of  the 
Probable,  laps  over  into  the  Improbable,  and  barely  halts 
at  the  Impossible.  These  expansive  habits  make  it  not 
incompatible  with  the  Romantic,  which  indeed,  in  its  so- 
berer aspects,  is  a  constant  factor  in  the  English  novel  up 
to  and  including  this  period. 

Romanticism  is  reduced  to  a  minimum  by  Maria  Edge- 
worth,  Jane  Austen,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  and  Anthony  Trol- 
lope,1  but  the  majority  of  our  novelists  have  not  been  thus 
content  to  present  life  in  its  everyday  garb,  neat  and  pros- 
perous enough,  it  may  be,  but  neutral,  inane,  diffuse,  in- 
conclusive. They  have  insisted  in  the  name  of  decorum 
and  dignity  on  the  dress  costume  and  company  manners 
which  in  civilized  society  are  a  prerequisite  to  public  ap- 
pearance and  conspicuous  position.  Life  is  still  life  and 
not  an  impostor,  even  when  robed  in  its  best  with  some 
artifice  of  color  and  ornament  and  some  evidence  of  de- 
cisive purposefulness  in  mien  and  bearing. 

1  Perhaps  pardon  should  be  asked  on  behalf  of  the  irresponsible  Circumstance 
which  allowed  so  large  a  preponderance  in  this  matter  to  the  sex  notoriously 
romantic,  flighty,  ignorant  of  real  life,  and  impatient  of  its  prose  and  drudgery. 
As  to  the  one  man,  Bryce  remarks,  in  his  Studies  in  Contemporary  Biography, 
"But  whoever  does  read  Trollope  in  1930  will  gather  from  his  pages  better 
than  from  any  others  an  impression  of  what  everyday  life  was  like  in  England 
in  the  *  middle  Victorian*  period." 

84 


THE     REALISTIC  85 

But  however  romantic  in  effect,  the  nineteenth-century 
novel  was  realistic  in  intent,  and  we  may  in  a  measure 
take  the  will  for  the  deed.  Of  this  devotion  to  reality  we 
have  several  testimonies,  from  such  important  witnesses 
as  Trollope,  Dickens,  Thackeray;  but  two  are  of  especial 
interest  as  they  come  from  two  of  the  most  undeniable  ro- 
manticists, Lytton  and  Bronte. 

In  her  Preface  to  the  belated  edition  of  The  Professor, 
Charlotte  Bronte  declared  her  own  preference  for  a  de- 
piction of  a  normal  and  unadorned  existence  to  be  thwarted 
by  the  lack  of  editorial  enthusiasm.    After  stating  the,." 
condition  of  things  she  adds —  \\\t+V* 

I'*" 

«*  *  *  tbe  publishers  in  general  scarcely  approved  of 
this  system,  but  would  have  liked  something  more  imaginative 
and  poetical — something  more  consonant  with  a  highly  wrought 
fancy,  with  a  taste  for  pathos,  with  sentiments  more  tender, 
elevated,  unworldly.  Indeed,  until  an  author  has  tried  to  dis- 
pose of  a  manuscript  of  this  kind  he  can  never  know  what 
stores  of  romance  and  sensibility  lie  hidden  in  breasts  he  would 
not  have  suspected  of  casketing  such  treasures." 

An  accurate  description  of  Victorianism  is  contained 
in  this  ironic  indictment,  and  perhaps  also  an  explanation 
of  the  romantic*  trend  of  its  realism  on  the  ground  of  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand  as  well  as  that  of  natural  pro- 
pensity. 

Lytton  prided  himself  prodigiously  on  his  true  rendering 
of  life,  though  of  his  two  dozen  novels,  "Tbe  Caxtons  alone 
approaches  the  realistic  type,  and  pictures  in  one  of  his 
heroes  1  a  phase  at  least  of  his  artistic  ideal: 

"The  humblest  alley  in  a  crowded  town  had  something 
poetical  for  him;  he  was  ever  ready  to  mix  in  a  crowd,  if  it  were 

1  Ernest  Maltr avers,  32.     Cf.  How  It  Strikes  a  Contemporary. 


I 


86          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

only  gathered  round  a  barrel-organ  or  a  dog  fight,  and  listen 
to  all  that  was  said,  and  notice  all  that  was  done.  And  this 
I  take  to  'be  the  true  poetical  temperament  essential  to  every 
artist  who  aspires  to  be  something  more  than  a  scene-painter." 

That  the  satirical  element  in  this  romantico-realistic 
form  of  fiction  should  be  characterized  by  humor,  expo- 
sure, and  comparative  rarity,  instead  of  wit,  exaggeration, 
and  ubiquity,  is  inevitable,  since  the  former  qualities  ac- 
cord not  only  with  realism  but  wifch  one  another. 

Humor  is  the  comic  sense  which  is  amused  by  things  as 
they  are,  whereas  wit*eith'er  creates  the  absurdity  or  fer- 
rets it  out  of  obscurity.  Hence  the  former  is  allied  to  the 
actual  more  than  to  the  fanciful,  and  uses  the  method  of 
simple  disclosure  rather  than  caricature.  While  therefore 
the  imaginative  energy  of  wit  is  dynamic,  that  of  humor 
is  more  quiescent,  being  sufficiently  exercised  by  its  func- 
tion of  interpretation,  of  showing  wherein  lurks  the  spirit 
of  the  laughable,  however  grave -and"  solemn  the  appear- 
ance to  the  unseeing  eye. 

Where  the  quality  of  the  satire  is  of  this  realistic  order, 
the  quantity  must  necessarily  be  restricted  and  more  or 
less  incidental  rather  than  dominant;  subdued,  not  ram- 
pant. For  the  true  satirical  humorist,  seeing  life  steadily 
and  whole,  observes  that  while  certain  parts  of  it  are  un- 
questionably abstird,  Whether  flauntingly  or  subtly  so, 
these  ludicrous  shreds  and  patches,  absolutely  integral 
and  ineradicable  as  they  .are,  are  nevertheless  only  a  por- 
tion and  not  so  large  a  one,  of  the-'stupendous  whole. 

Neither  that  astigmatie  visualizer,  the  cynic,  who  re- 
gards life  itself  as  a  huge  joke  on  its  victims,  nor  that  my- 
opic spectator,  the  misanthrope,  who  conceives  humanity 
as  an  unmitigated  jest  on  creation,  was  a  Victorian  favorite. 
Both  are  blind  to  certain  phenomena, — beauty,  power, 


THEREALISTIC  87 

exquisite  delicacy,  tremendous  strength, — which  also  ex- 
ist, which  even  the  pessimist  grants  to  be  compensatory, 
and  which,  when  genuine,  are  utterly  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  ridicule  that  pretends  to  sanity  or  justice.  Such 
then, — humorously  truthful  and  suitably  proportioned, — 
is  the  general  character  of  the  satiric  stratum  which  runs, 
widening  and  narrowing,  through  the  great  vein  of  Vic- 
torian fiction. 

In  the  legitimate  novel  there  are  two  main  devices  of 
revealing  the  ludicrous;  the  direct,  whereby  the  author 
in  his  own  reflections  and  comments  points  it  out;  and  the 
dramatic,  whereby  he  shows  it  by  means  of  incident  and 
character.  The  latter  method  is  again  subdivisible  into 
two  modes,  by  the  use  of  the  two  contrasting  types  of  ac- 
tors, humorous  and  humorists.  The  first  are  allowed  to 
betray  themselves,  their  very  unconsciousness  adding  to 
the  piquancy  of  the  situation.  For  this  the  favorite  tech- 
nical tool  is  the  dramatic  monologue.  The  second  are  the 
witty  protagonists.  They  stand  in  loco  scriptoris  and  ex- 
press that  detection  of  absurdity  for  which  the  humorless 
humorous  furnish  the  occasion.1 

•  When  we  consult  our  original  list,  we  find  the  two  ex- 
tremes have  been  cut  off,  as  Peacock  and  Butler  belong 
entirely  to  the  other  department.  The  remaining  eleven 
have  produced  about  one  hundred  twenty  novels  in  the 
stricter  sense,  not  including  short  stories,  tales,  sketches, 
or  burlesques.  It  must  be  noted  that  this  restriction  rules 

1  These  types  may  be  summarized  for  convenience  in  a  topical  outline: 

I.  Direct. 

II.  Dramatic. 

1.  Situation. 

2.  Character. 

a.  Witty  protagonists. 

b.  Comical  antagonists. 


88          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

out  some  items  important  as  literature,  and  in  certain 
cases  as  satire, — CranforJ,  Pickwick,  Peg  Wojfington, 
Scenes  from  Clerical  Life. 

Of  the  grand  total,  approximately  one-quarter  is  elim- 
inated as  being  essentially  and  thoroughly  serious.  Here 
again  are  found  some  notable  names, — Last  Days  of  Pom- 
peii, Mary  Barton,  Henry  Esmond,  'Tale  of  'Two  Cities,  "The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  Jane  Eyre,  Hypatia.  Three-fourths 
is  a  large  majority,  from  which  one  might  deduce  that  the 
novel  of  this  period  was  prevailingly  satirical.  But  the 
other  extreme,  those  so  strongly  saturated  as  to  deserve 
the  name  of  satires,  are  far  fewer  than  the  unsatirical. 
:  Vanity  Fair,  Martin  Cbuzzlewit,  fhe  Egoist,  possibly  Bar- 
cbester  'Towers,  and  feaucham])  s  Career,  practically  ex- 
haust the  list.  This  leaves  about  four  score  of  novels  in 
which  the  spirit  of  satire  exists,  manifesting  itself 
showily,  coyly,  in  wide  range  and  diversity. 

When  an  author  uses  the  direct  method  for  the  convey- 
ance of  satirical  ideas,  he  becomes  for  the  nonce  a  didactic, 
though  humor-flavored,  philosopher.  Over  against  the 
artistic  liabilities  incurred, — interruption  of  the  narrative, 
intrusion  of  more  or  less  irrelevant  matter,  may  be 
placed  the  intellectual  assets, — presentation  of  opinions 
and  conclusions,  and  frank  expression  of  personality. 

Whether  approved  of  or  not,  this  discursive  habit  must 
be  accepted  as  an  old  inheritance.  From  the  beginning, 
the  English  novel  has  been  a  hybrid,  the  drama  grafted  on 
the  treatise.  Even  the  medieval  mind,  with  its  insatiable 
relish  for  the  pageantry  of  life,  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that 
the  Merry  Tale  should  not  be  entirely  its  own  reward,  and 
accordingly  found  for  it  a  moral  justification,  whereby 
pleasure  and  profit  were  joined  in  a  most  complacent  al- 
liance. And  ever  since,  the  prevailing  purpose  has  been 


THEREALISTIC  89 

not  only  to  portray  life  but  to  exhibit  this  or  that  deduc- 
tion about  life. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  this  tendency  took  definite 
shape  and  substance,  for  then  it  became  notably  true  that 
the  division  between  narrative  and  essay  was  not  coincident 
with  a  division  between  narrators  and  essayists.  Swift, 
Addison,  Defoe,  Fielding,  Sterne,  were  both.  And  it  was 
their  mantle  and  not  that  of  romance  writers,  Gothic  or 
Historical,  that  best  fitted  Victorian  shoulders.  Of  the 
many  testimonies  to  this,  direct  and  indirect,  the  follow- 
ing from  a  characteristic  Victorian  pen  may  be  cited  as 
evidence:  1 


"The  reader  of  a  novel  —  who  had  doubtless  taken  the  volume 
up  simply  for  amusement,  and  who  would  probably  lay  it  down 
did  he  suspect  that  instruction,  like  a  snake-in-the-grass,  like 
physic  beneath  the  sugar,  was  to  be  imposed  upon  him  —  re- 
quires from  his  author  chiefly  this,  that  he  shall  be  amused  by 
a  narrative  in  which  elevated  sentiment  prevails,  and  gratified 
by  being  made  to  feel  that  the  elevated  sentiments  described  are 
exactly  his  own." 

He  then  goes  on  to  show  that  this  morality  is  best  served 
by  realism,  in  spite  of  the.  superior  attractions  of  heroes 
and  villains:  2 

"But  for  one  Harry  Esmond,  there  are  fifty  Ralph  Newtons  — 
five  hundred  and  fifty  of  them;  and  the  very  youth  whose 
bosom  glows  with  admiration  as  he  reads  of  Harry  —  who  exults 
in  the  idea  that  as  Harry  did,  so  would  he  have  done  —  lives  as 
Ralph  lived,  is  less  noble,  less  persistent,  less  of  a  man  even 
than  was  Ralph  Newton. 

"It  is  the  test  of  a  novel-writer's  art  that  he  conceals  his 
snake-in-the-grass;  but  the  reader  may  be  sure  that  it  is  always 

1  Trollope:  Ralph  the  Heir,  275.  2  Ibid.,  275-276. 


9O          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

there.  *  *  *  In  writing  novels,  we  novelists  preach  to  you 
from  our  pulpits,  and  are  keenly  anxious  that  our  sermons  shall 
not  be  inefficacious.  *  *  *  Nevertheless,  the  faults  of  a 
Ralph  Newton,  and  not  the  vices  of  a  Varney  or  a  Barry  Lyndon, 
are  the  evils  against  which  men  should  in  these  days  be  taught 
to  guard  themselves — which  women  also  should  be  made  to 
hate.  Such  is  the  writer's  apology  for  his  very  indifferent  hero, 
Ralph  the  Heir." 

In  another  volume  1  the  same  writer  confesses, — 

"Castles  with  unknown  passages  are  not  compatible  with  my 
homely  muse.  I  would  as  lief  have  to  do  with  a  giant  in  my 
book — a  real  giant,  such  as  Goliath — as  with  a  murdering 
monk  with  a  scowling  eye.  The  age  for  such  delights  is,  I 
think,  gone.  We  may  say  historically  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  time 
that  there  were  mysterious  sorrows  in  those  days.  They  are 
now  as  much  out  of  date  as  the  giants." 

Victorianism  of  course  had  her  own  sorrows,  patent  and 
unmysterious  as  they  were.  At  no  time  could  she  have 
been  mistaken  for  Elizabethanism.  But  she  grew  gradu- 
ally in  strength  and  sobriety,  and  cast  a  heavier  shadow 
in  the  afternoon  of  the  century.  In  its  mid-morning  Dis- 
raeli could  compliment  his  own  Young  Duke  with  the  sub- 
title, "a  moral  tale  though  gay."  And  the  chief  ambition 
of  the  young  writers  up  to  the  early  forties  seems  to  have 
been  to  produce  tales  that  were  gay  though  moral. 

Of  this  tendency  Lytton  is  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample. Innately  serious  and  thoroughly  sentimental,  he 
nevertheless  dared  not  be  as  solemn  as  he  could.  He  must 
live  up  to  the  requirement  for  ironic  wit  and  the  light 
touch  of  savior  faire,  even  though,  lacking  native  exuber- 
ance and  somewhat  deficient  in  taste,  he  often  fell  into 

1  The  Bertrams,  150, 


THE     REALISTIC  91 

the  slough  of  facetiousness,  or  at  least  lapsed  into  child- 
ish jocularity. 

To  quote  him  at  his  best,  however,  we  take  a  few  ex- 
cerpts from  the  last  of  his  trilogy  of  domestic  novels.  In 
the  second  of  the  series,  My  Novelyhe  had  adapted  the  pref- 
atory device  of  'Tom  Jones,  using  the  remarks  of  the  Cax- 
ton  family  as  a  sort  of  introductory  (or  more  properly,  ret- 
rospective) chorus  to  each  book.  In  What  Will  He  Do  with 
It,  the  idea  is  carried  out  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  expository 
paragraphs  preliminary  to  chapters.  The  following  will 
be  sufficient  to  indicate  the  tone: 

Book  I 
Chapter  XII 

"In  which  it  is  shown  that  a  man  does  this  or  declines  to  do 
that  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself — a  reserve  which  is 
extremely  conducive  to  the  social  interests  of  a  community; 
since  the  conjecture  into  the  origin  and  nature  of  those  reasons 
.  stimulates  the  inquiring  faculties,  and  furnishes  the  staple  of 
modern  conversation.  And  as  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that,  if 
their  neighbors  left  them  nothing  to  guess  at,  three  fourths  of 
civilized  humankind,  male  or  female,  would  have  nothing  to 
talk  about;  so  we  cannot  too  gratefully  encourage  that  needful 
curiosity,  termed  by  the  inconsiderate  tittle-tattle  or  scandal, 
which  saves  the  vast  majority  of  our  species  from  being  reduced 
to  the  degraded  condition  of  dumb  animals." 

Chapter  XV 

"The  historian  records  the  attachment  to  public  business 
which  distinguishes  the  British  Legislator — Touching  instance 
of  the  regret  which  ever  in  patriotic  bosoms  attends  the  ne- 
glect of  a  public  duty." 

Chapter  XVII 

*     It  also  showeth,  for  the  instruction  of  Men  and 
States,  the  connection  between  democratic  opinion  and  wounded 


92          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

self-love;  so  that,  if  some  Liberal  statesman  desire  to  rouse 
against  an  aristocracy  the  class  just  below  it,  he  has  only  to 
persuade  a  fine  lady  to  be  exceedingly  civil  'to  that  sort  of 
people/" 

Book  IV 
Chapter  IX 

«*  *  *  The  aboriginal  Man-Eater,  or  Pocket  Cannibal, 
is  susceptible  to  the  refining  influences  of  Civilization.  He 
decorates  his  lair  with  the  skins  of  his  victims;  he  adorns  his 
person  with  the  spoils  of  those  whom  he  devours." 

Of  the  nine  remaining  names  on  the  list,  the  real  Vic- 
torians according  to  chronology,  it  happens  that  two-thirds 
are  almost  negative  examples  of  direct  satire.  Reade, 
Trollope,  and  Kingsley  take  their  own  moralizing  for  the 
most  part  seriously,  as  do  also  the  three  women,  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell,  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  George  Eliot.  Such  instances 
to  the  contrary  as  there  are  only  serve  in  the  usual  capac- 
ity of  exceptions.  It  is  the  remaining  third,  Thackeray, 
Dickens,  and  Meredith,  who  are  prominent  in  this  matter 
as  in  most  others. 

Thackeray  usually  trusts  to  the  metaphorical  and  al- 
lusive to  secure  a  humorous  effect.  Vanity  Fair  is  itself 
a  symbolic  term,  elaborated  upon  in  the  Introduction  and 
harped  upon  constantly  throughout  the  story.  The  ac- 
count, for  instance,  of  the  Sedley  sale  is  prefaced  by  a  de- 
scription of  a  similar  conclusion  to  the  career  of  the  late 
Lord  Dives,  the  chapter  beginning  as  follows: 1 

"If  there  is  any  exhibition  in  all  Vanity  Fair  which  Satire 
and  Sentiment  can  visit  arm  in  arm  together;  where  you  light 
on  the  strangest  contrasts  laughable  and  tearful;  where  you  may 
be  gentle  and  pathetic,  or  savage  and  cynical  with  perfect  pro- 

1  Vanity  Fair,  I,  225. 


THEREALISTIC  93 

priety;  it  is  at  one  of  those  public  assemblies,  a  crowd  of  which 
are  advertised  every  day  in  the  last  page  of  the  'Times'  news- 
paper, and  over  which  the  late  Mr.  George  Robins  used  to  pre- 
side with  so  much  dignity." 

X 

And  again : 1 

"This  is  a  species  of  dignity  in  which  the  high-bred  British 
female  reigns  supreme.  To  watch  the  behavior  of  a  fine  lady 
to  other  and  humbler  women,  is  a  very  good  sport  for  a  phil- 
osophical frequenter  of  Vanity  Fair." 

He  delights  in  whimsical  classic  comparisons: 2 

"Is  this  case  a  rare  one?  and  don't  we  see  every  day  in  the 
world  many  an  honest  Hercules  at  the  apron-strings  of  Omphale, 
and  great  whiskered  Samsons  prostrate  in  Delilah's  lap?" 

Sometimes  the  classical  is  mingled  in  with  the  Scrip- 
tural: 3 

"A  good  housewife  is  of  necessity  a  humbug;  and  Cornelia's 
husband  was  hoodwinked,  as  Potiphar  was — only  in  a  different 
way." 

Sometimes  we  have  a  scientific  simile,  as  the  comment 
on  Becky's  ambition  to  be  presented  at  Court.4 

"  If  she  did  not  wish  to  lead  a  virtuous  life,  at  least  she  desired 
to  enjoy  a  character  for  virtue,  and  we  know  that  no  lady  in 
the  genteel  world  can  possess  this  desideratum,  until  she  has 
put  on  a  train  and  feathers,  and  has  been  presented  to  her 
Sovereign  at  court.  From  that  august  interview  they  come  out 
stamped  as  honest  women.  The  Lord  Chamberlain  gives  them 

1  Vanity  Fair,  I,  396.     In  Chapter  XIX  occurs  the  remark,  "  Perhaps  in 
Vanity  Fair  there  are  no  better  satires  than  letters." 

2  Ibid.,  I,  214. 
« /WJ.,1,233- 

*  Vanity  Fairy  II,  304. 


94          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

a  certificate  of  virtue.  And  as  dubious  goods  or  letters  are 
passed  through  an  oven  at  quarantine,  sprinkled  with  aromatic 
vinegar,  and  then  pronounced  clean — many  a  lady  whose 
reputation  would  be  doubtful  otherwise  and  liable  to  give  in- 
fection, passes  through  the  wholesome  ordeal  of  the  Royal 
Presence,  and  issues  from  it  free  from  all  taint." 

In  his  later  novels  Thackeray  used  in  greater  propor- 
tion the  more  artistic  indirect  method,  although  he  could 
more  easily  have  plucked  out  his  eye  and  cast  it  from 
him  than  to  have  performed  the  same  operation  on  his 
habit  of  moralizing,  which  most  frequently  took  the  form 
of  a  semi-whimsical  but  wholly  homiletic  exhortation  to 
his  dear  readers  to  make  a  personal  application  of  the 
lessons  involved  in  the  story.1 

Of  these  later  instances,  one  illustrates  the  use  of  lit- 
erary allusion,  neatly  combined  with  the  commercial.2 

"Though,  no  doubt,  in  these  matters,  when  Lovelace  is  tired 
of  Clarissa  (or  the  contrary),  it  is  best  for  both  parties  to  break 
at  once,  *  *  *  yet  our  self-love,  or  our  pity,  or  our  sense 
of  decency,  does  not  like  that  sudden  bankruptcy.  Before  we 
announce  to  the  world  that  our  firm  of  Lovelace  and  Co.  can't 
meet  its  engagements,  we  try  to  make  compromises;  we  have 
mournful  meetings  of  partners;  we  delay  the  putting  up  of  the 
shutters,  and  the  dreary  announcement  of  the  failure.  It  must 

1  Among  countless  such  gems,  the  following  is  of  purest  ray  serene: 

"Oh,  be  humble,  my  brother,  in  your  prosperity!  Be  gentle  with  those  who 
are  less  lucky,  if  not  more  deserving.  Think,  what  right  have  you  to  be  scornful, 
whose  virtue  is  a  deficiency  of  temptation,  whose  success  may  be  a  chance, 
whose  rank  may  be  an  ancestor's  accident,  whose  prosperity  is  very  likely  a 
satire."  Vanity  Fair,  II,  43. 

2  Pendennisy  II,  53. 

The  introductory  chapter  of  The  Newcomes  needs  only  to  be  recalled  as  an 
instance  of  the  satirical  fable.  Nor  is  the  beginning  of  Henry  Esmond  lacking 
in  the  satirical  tone. 


THEREALISTIC  95 

come:  but  we  pawn  our  jewels  to  keep  things  going  a  little 
longer." 

Dickens  is  included  with  this  "  didactic "  trio,  not  so 
much  because  he  belongs  with  them  as  because  he  does 
not  belong  with  the  others.  He  cannot  be  classed  as  a 
negative  example,  but  his  positive  contributions  are  rel- 
atively small.  His  artistic  superiority  to  Thackeray  in 
this  respect  comes,  however,  not  from  a  greater  knowl- 
edge of  artistry,  and  even  less  from  greater  care  for  it, 
but  through  the  happy  accident  of  a  vivid,  dramatic 
temperament.  He  refrains  from  much  moralizing  not, 
we  are  sure,  because  he  loves  moralizing  less  but  because 
he  loves  people  and  actions  more.  His  overwhelming 
interest  in  these,  his  affection  and  respect  for  the  doings 
and  sayings  of  his  characters,  is  too  intense  to  allow  of 
their  being  interrupted  by  anything.  He  is  thus  some- 
thing of  an  artist  unaware.  He  does  not  work  out  his 
own  salvation  by  taking  thought  or  by  deliberating  over 
ways  and  means;  but  through  a  fortunate  preoccupation, 
an  absorbing  engagement  with  the  concrete,  he  almost 
unconsciously  dispenses  with  the  abstract,  or  expresses 
it  in  terms  of  the  specific. 

It  is  true  also  that  he  segregates  a  good  deal  of  his 
reflection  in  his  Prefaces;  but  it  crops  up  too  often  in  the 
course  of  the  narrative  to  be  disregarded.  One  of  the 
first  showings  occurs  in  connection  with  Mr.  Bumble's 
relinquishment  of  the  beadle's  costume  together  with  that 
office,  and  his  pensive  cogitations  thereupon.1 

"There  are  some  promotions  in  life,  which,  independent  of 
the  more  substantial  rewards  they  offer,  acquire  peculiar  value 
and  dignity  from  the  coats  and  waistcoats  connected  with  them. 

1  Oliver  Twist,  350.    The  idea  was  possibly  suggested  by  Sartor  Resartus. 


96          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

A  field-marshal  has  his  uniform;  a  bishop  his  silk  apron;  a 
counsellor  his  silk  gown;  a  beadle  his  cocked  hat.  Strip  the 
bishop  of  his  apron,  or  the  beadle  of  his  hat  and  lace;  what  are 
they?  Men.  Mere  men.  Dignity,  and  even  holiness  too, 
sometimes,  are  more  questions  of  coat  and  waistcoat  than 
some  people  imagine." 

In  his  next  novel,  Dickens  has  a  word  for  those  "who 
pamper .  their  compassion  and  need  high  stimulants  to 
rouse  it,"  and  indicates  the  cause  of  hysterical  zeal  on 
the  one  hand  or  dull  indifference  on  the  other,  equally 
misplaced: 1 

"In  short,  charity  must  have  its  romance,  as  the  novelist  or 
playwright  must  have  his.  A  thief  in  fustian  is  a  vulgar  char- 
acter, scarcely  to  be  thought  of  by  persons  of  refinement; 
but  dress  him  in  green  velvet,  with  a  high-crowned  hat,  and 
change  the  scene  of  his  operations,  from  a  thickly  peopled  city, 
to  a  mountain  road,  and  you  shall  find  in  him  the  very  soul  of 
poetry  and  adventure." 

The  romance  of  the  picturesque  is  one  of  our  weaknesses; 
that  of  the  mysterious  is  another.  The  latter  is  discussed 
with  reference  to  the  machinations  of  the  Gordon  Riot : 2 

"To  surround  anything,  however  monstrous  or  ridiculous, 
with  an  air  of  mystery,  is  to  invest  it  with  a  secret  charm,  and 
power  of  attraction  which  to  the  crowd  is  irresistible.  False 
priests,  false  prophets,  false  doctors,  false  patriots,  false  prod- 
igies of  every  kind,  veiling  their  proceeding  in  mystery,  have 
always  addressed  themselves  at  an  immense  advantage  to  the 
popular  credulity,  and  have  been,  perhaps,  more  indebted  to 
that  resource  in  gaining  and  keeping  for  a  time  the  upper 
hand  of  Truth  and  Common  Sense,  than  to  any  half  dozen 
items  in  the  whole  catalogue  of  imposture." 

1  Nicholas  Nickleby,  I,  286.    This  thrust  is  aimed  especially  at  Paid  Clifford. 

2  Barnaby  Rudge,  I,  296. 


THEREALISTIC  97 

Toward  the  legal  profession  the  attitude  of  Dickens  is 
never  ambiguous,  and  ever  and  anon,  as  in  the  following 
instance,  he  expresses  it  with  concise  clarity: 1 

"The  one  great  principle  of  the  English  law  is,  to  make 
business  for  itself.  There  is  no  other  principle  distinctly,  cer- 
tainly, and  consistently  maintained  through  all  its  narrow 
turnings.  Viewed  by  this  light  it  becomes  a  coherent  scheme, 
and  not  the  monstrous  maze  the  laity  are  apt  to  think  it.  Let 
them  but  once  clearly  perceive  that  its  grand  principle  is  to 
make  business  for  itself  at  their  expense,  and  surely  they  will 
cease  to  grumble." 

No  less  favored  with  warmth  of  feeling  is  the  famous 
Circumlocution  Office,  to  which  much  eloquence  is  de- 
voted in  a  chapter  "containing  the  whole  science  of 
government."  There  are  pages  of  satirical  description, 
the  keynote  of  which  is  found  in  an  early  paragraph: 2 

"This  glorious  establishment  had  been  early  in  the  field, 
when  the  one  sublime  principle  involving  the  difficult  art  of 
governing  a  country,  was  first  distinctly  revealed  to  statesmen. 
It  had  been  foremost  to  study  that  bright  revelation,  and  to 
carry  its  shining  influence  through  the  whole  of  the  official 
proceedings.  Whatever  was  required  to  be  done,  the  Circumlo- 
cution Office  was  beforehand  with  all  the  public  departments 
in  the  art  of  perceiving — How  NOT  To  Do  IT." 

It  is  recognized  as  something  of  an  anomaly  that  Mere- 
dith should  have  begun  publishing  fiction  along  with 
George  Eliot,  and  fifteen  years  before  Hardy  and  Butler, 
for  he  belongs  with  the  latter  as  post- Victorian  in  art  and 
character.  He  represents  at  once  the  maturity  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  the  embryonic  promise  of  the 
twentieth,  whose  new  currents  were  already  meeting  and 

1  Bleak  House,  553.  8  Little  Dorrit,  I,  139. 


98          SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

clashing  with  the  old  full  tide.  About  him  there  could 
be  nothing  artless  or  naive,  nothing  unconscious  or  pre- 
occupied. Ripeness  of  judgment,  deliberation  in  method, 
are  stamped  on  every  line,  giving  an  effect  of  purpose- 
fulness  without  dogmatism,  and  profundity  without  owl- 
ishness.  Whatever  he  does  is  done  intentionally,1  and  if 
some  lack  of  spontaneity  is  the  result,  it  is  amply  com- 
pensated for  by  the  strength  and  sureness  that  come  from 
a  man's  command  of  himself  and  his  material.  In  so 
far  as  he  is  obscure,  involved,  compactly  sententious, 
his  malice  is,  like  Browning's,  aforethought.  Not  in  igno- 
rance nor  indifference  does  it  arise,  but  from  independent 
choice  and  a  certain  scorn  of  any  other  procedure. 

Accordingly  while  direct  satire  is  not  wanting  in  his 
novels,  it  is  restrained  in  amount  and  sophisticated  in 
nature.  It  does  not  take  the  shape  of  facile  application 
of  obvious  conditions,  nor  of  flamboyant  portraiture,  but 
of  concentrated  analyses  of  phases  of  life,  from  a  sci- 
entific point  of  view,  rather  than  ethical,  and  presented 
with  calm  detachment. 

Meredith  is  quite  capable  of  telling  pure  story,  as  in 
Vittoria  and  Harry  Richmond,  but  he  is  also  capable  of 
putting  in  some  personal  seasoning,  particularly  evinced 
in  the  openings  of  Beauchamp's  Career,  and  An  Amazing 
Marriage,  and  throughout  'The  Egoist. 

Of  these  two  discursive  introductions,  the  former  is 
more  amenable  to  quotation.  It  deals  with  the  situation 
incident  to  a  rumor  of  French  invasion,  and  personifies 
Panic  as  a  sleepy  old  spinster  roused  into  brief  hysteria, 
and  lapsing  back  into  comfortable  stupor.2 

1  Cf.  his  description  of  one  of  his  favorite  characters,  Nesta  Radnor, — "what 
she  did,  she  intended  to  do." 

2  Beauchamp's  Career,  2,  3,  4. 


THE     REALISTIC  99 

"This  being  apprehended,  by  the  aid  of  our  own  shortness  of 
figures  and  the  agitated  images  of  the  red-breeched  only  waiting 
the  signal  to  jump  and  be  at  us,  there  ensued  a  curious  exhibition 
that  would  be  termed,  in  simple  language,  writing  to  the  news- 
papers, for  it  took  the  outward  form  of  letters :  in  reality,  it  was 
the  deliberate  saddling  of  our  ancient  nightmare  of  Invasion, 
putting  the  postillion  on  her,  and  trotting  her  along  the  high- 
road with  a  winding  horn  to  rouse  old  Panic.  *  *  *  She 
did  a  little  mischief  by  dropping  on  the  stock-markets;  in  other 
respects  she  was  harmless,  and,  inasmuch  as  she  established  a 
subject  for  conversation,  useful. 

"Then,  lest  she  should  have  been  taken  too  seriously,  the 
Press,  which  had  kindled,  proceeded  to  extinguish  her  with  the 
formidable  engines  called  leading  articles,  which  fling  fire  or 
water,  as  the  occasion  may  require.  *  *  * 

"Then  the  people,  rather  ashamed,  abused  the  Press  for  un- 
reasonably disturbing  them.  The  Press  attacked  old  Panic 
and  stripped  her  naked.  Panic,  with  a  desolate  scream,  ar- 
raigned the  Parliamentary  Opposition  for  having  inflated  her 
to  serve  base  party  purposes.  The  Opposition  challenged  the 
allegations  of  Government,  *  *  *  and  proclaimed  itself 
the  watch-dog  of  the  country." 

At  about  this  juncture  the  enemy  himself  stepped  in 
and  announced  there  never  had  been  any  need  for  the 
dog  to  bark  at  all: 

"So,  then,  Panic,  or  what  remained  of  her,  was  put  to  bed 
again.  The  Opposition  retired  into  its  kennel  growling.  The 
People  coughed  like  a  man  of  two  minds,  doubting  whether  he 
has  been  divinely  inspired  or  has  cut  a  ridiculous  figure.  The 
Press  interpreted  the  cough  as  a  warning  to  Government;  and 
Government  launched  a  big  ship  with  hurrahs,  and  ordered 
the  recruiting-sergeant  to  be  seen  conspicuously." 

All  this  would  seem  sufficient,  but  it  appears  that  the 
real  sting  after  these  preliminary  pricks,  is  in  the  tail. 


IOO       SATIRE     IN      THE   VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

The  picture  concludes  with  the  bulky  figure  of  the  Tax- 
Payer  looming  in  the  background;  he  is  pointed  out  with 
the  laconic  comment: l 

"Will  you  not  own  that  the  working  of  the  system  for  scaring 
him  and  bleeding  him  is  very  ingenious?  But  whether  the  in- 
genuity comes  of  native  sagacity,  as  it  is  averred  by  some,  or 
whether  it  shows  an  instinct  laboring  to  supply  the  deficiencies 
of  stupidity,  according  to  others,  I  cannot  express  an  opinion." 

The  satiric  parentheses  in  The  Egoist  are  naturally  con- 
cerned not  with  politics  but  with  individual  men  and 
women,  chiefly  in  their  relationships  to  one  another.  A 
few  instances  will  serve. 

Referring  to  the  selfish  folly  of  the  masculine  demand 
for  feminine  delicacy  rather  than  strength,  Meredith  says 
of  women : 2 

"Are  they  not  of  a  nature  warriors,  like  men? — men's  mates 
to  bear  them  heroes  instead  of  puppets?  But  the  devouring 
male  Egoist  prefers  them  as  inanimate  overwrought  polished 
pure-metal  precious  vessels,  fresh  from  the  hands  of  the  artificer, 
for  him  to  walk  away  with  hugging,  call  all  his  own,  drink  of, 
and  fill  and  drink  of,  and  forget  that  he  stole  them." 

Again,  apropos  of  that  "adoring  female's  worship/' 
destined  only  for  the  strong,  "who  maintain  the  crown 

1  Beauchamp's  Career,  6. 

2  The  Egoist,  132.    Later  he  indicates  the  corollary  of  this, — 

"But  not  many  men  are  trained  to  courage;  young  women  are  trained  to 
cowardice.  For  them  to  front  an  evil  with  plain  speaking  is  to  be  guilty  of 
effrontery  and  forfeit  the  waxen  polish  of  purity,  and  therewith  their  command- 
ing place  in  the  market."  Ibid.,  296. 

Cf.  Evan  Harrington,  208,  for  the  muddled  state  of  a  young  woman's  mind, 
only  to  be  penetrated  by  "that  zigzag  process  of  inquiry  conducted  by  following 
her  actions,  for  she  can  tell  you  nothing,  and  if  she  does  not  want  to  know  a 
particular  matter,  it  must  be  a  strong  beam  from  the  central  system  of  facts 
that  shall  penetrate  her." 


THE     REALISTIC  IOI 

by  holding  divinely  independent  of  the  great  emotion 
they  have  sown,"  he  says: 1 

"In  the  one  hundred  and  fourth  chapter  of  the  thirteenth 
volume  of  the  Book  of  Egoism,  it  is  written :  Possession  without 
obligation  to  the  object  possessed  approaches  felicity" 

When  we  turn  to  plot  or  situation  as  a  vehicle  of  satire, 
we  find  an  almost  exact  parallel,  as  to  proportionate 
amount,  to  the  reflective  type  just  discussed.  More  than 
half  of  the  novelists  on  our  list  have  no  examples  worthy 
of  special  mention.  A  few  insert  amusing  episodes,  not 
especially  germane  to  the  main  plot.  And  the  three 
notable  instances,  where  the  satiric  situation  is  a  feature 
of  importance,  where  it  influences  the  whole  trend  of  the 
movement,  affects  the  leading  characters,  and  plays  a 
part  in  the  climax,  occur  in  the  three  real  satires,  Martin 
Cbuzzlewit,  Vanity  Fair,  and  The  Egoist;  so  that  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  and  Meredith  are  again  our  main  theme. 

Situation  or  action  is  of  course  merely  the  dramatization 
of  character,  and  not  to  be  distinguished  from  it  except  as 
actual  expression  is  distinguished  from  the  capacity  for  it. 
Individuals  speak  for  themselves  instead  of  being  spoken 
for,  although  they  often  convey  more  than  they  mean  to, 
and  much  that  they  would  not.  Since  this  form  of  art 
has  its  own  medium  in  the  drama,  it  is  there  that  we 
look  for  the  most  perfect  and  concentrated  expression, 
and  expect  to  find  it  in  the  novel  only  in  the  latter's 
dramatic  moments,  which  may  be  few  and  far  between. 
But  as  the  denouement  of  the  drama  usually  turns  on 
some  phase  of  poetic  justice,  either  in  its  tragic  or  its 
comic  aspect,  so  also  does  this  dramatic  element  in  fiction. 
Satire  in  situation  is  therefore  concerned  with  the  comedy 

1  The  Egoist,  156. 


IO2       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

of  poetic  justice,  and  is  successful  in  so  far  as  that  sense 
is  appealed  to  and  satisfied. 

In  their  respective  stories,  Pecksniff,  Becky  Sharp,  and 
Sir  Willoughby  Patterne  are  the  people  of  most  impor- 
tance, if  not  the  heroes;  and  in  each  case  the  climax  of 
the  career  is  a  ludicrous  anticlimax,  with  circumstances 
appropriate  in  every  instance  to  the  character. 

The  unveiling  of  Pecksniff  is  a  public  and  demonstra- 
tive affair,  in  accordance  with  the  public  and  demonstra- 
tive nature  of  his  previous  life,  and  also,  one  may  add, 
with  the  Dickensian  theory  of  the  fitness  of  humorous  ret- 
ribution. In  spite  of  the  crude  melodrama  of  the  scene, 
there  is  fundamental  truth  in  the  most  important  item 
in  it,  the  behavior  of  the  one  toward  whom  all  eyes  are 
turned  in  hostile  contempt.  He  needed  no  loyal,  anxious 
mother  to  beg  him  to  "be  'umble,"  for  his  humility  was 
not  as  the  Keeps*.  It  was  a  superior  article,  self-pos- 
sessed and  patronizing,  not  servile  and  ingratiating,  and 
it  was  therefore  impregnable.  Uriah  might  be  dis- 
comfited when  his  mask  was  publicly  torn  away,  but 
the  Pecksniffian  duplicity  was  no  mere  flimsy  detachable 
mask.  It  was  the  very  skin  of  his  face;  indeed,  it  was 
more  than  skin  deep;  it  was  the  stuff  of  his  soul.  He 
could  therefore  be  imperturbable,  though  felled  to  the 
floor,  a  dignified  martyr,  grieved  but  gracious  under 
calumny,  unquelled  by  those  who  had  assembled  to  do 
him  dishonor. 

This  impressiveness  serves  Pecksniff,  as  her  wit  serves 
Becky,  to  mitigate  the  absurdity  which  threatens  him.  It 
is  not  in  this  heightened  moment  that  his  comicality  is 
apparent;  it  is  in  the  retrospective  picture  we  get  of  him 
through  the  revelation  of  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  whereby  he 
is  seen  not  only  as  the  biter  bit,  but  as  the  calf,  the  bland, 


THE     REALISTIC  IO3 

assured,  shrewd  yet  unsuspecting  calf,  that,  being  given 
plenty  of  rope,  promptly  hanged  himself. 

In  the  downfall  of  Becky  there  is  less  of  the  comic  and 
more  of  the  tragic,  though  Thackeray  does  not  choose  to 
invest  her  with  enough  dignity  for  tragedy.  She  is  less 
absurd  than  Pecksniff  or  Sir  Willoughby  for  several  reasons. 
She  is  more  human  and  has  the  claim  of  normal  humanity 
on  our  sympathy;  she  is  the  product  of  circumstances, 
clearly  shown  to  be  largely  responsible  for  her  failure  both 
in  aspiration  and  achievement,  whereas  theirs  is  gratui- 
tous and  without  excuse;  and  she  is  herself  too  much  of 
a  jester  to  be  patronized  by  the  ridicule  of  others.  She  too 
can  keep  up  appearances  to  the  last,  not  by  reinforcing 
her  hypocrisy  but  by  being  able  to  dispense  with  it,  when 
it  no  longer  serves,  and  to  mock  at  it  along  with  every- 
thing else.  The  only  real  joke  she  is  the  victim  of  comes 
comparatively  early,  when  she  discovers  she  might  be- 
come Lady  Crawley  were  she  not  already  daughter-in 
law  of  the  coveted  and  forfeited  title. 

This  theme  of  a  vaulting  ambition  overleaping  itself  is  a 
favorite  with  Thackeray,  and  he  did  some  good  apprentice 
work  on  it  in  'The  Fatal  Boots,  and  Yellowplusb  Memoirs. 
In  the  former  the  unwelcome  wedding  present  comes 
as  a  delightful  bit  of  comic  nemesis.  But  the  outcome  of 
the  latter,  with  an  accomplished  swindler  outwitted  by 
his  own  father,  and  a  helpless  woman  ruthlessly  sacrificed, 
savors  too  much  of  tragedy  to  be  amusing. 

Sir  Willoughby  is  only  an  egoist,  not  a  hypocrite  nor  a 
sycophant;  and  being  a  gentleman  can  suffer  naught  but  a 
gentlemanly  humiliation.  Such  a  one  is  not  to  be  knocked 
down  and  taunted  in  the  presence  of  his  little  world;  he  is 
merely  made  a  subject  of  gossip  and  speculation:  nor  is  he 
to  be  reduced  to  sordid  material  scheming;  his  intrigues  are 


IO4       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

all  on  the  spiritual  plane.  A  destiny  that  seemed  kind  but 
proved  cruel  created  him  the  central  sun  to  his  own  solar 
system.  His  only  sin  was  the  desire  to  maintain  that  posi- 
tion by  exerting  a  strong  but  legitimate  centripetal  force 
upon  his  satellites:  if  any  centrifugal  force  should  become 
stronger,  they  must  simply  drop  off  into  space.  His  mate 
he  conceived  of  as  the  fairest  star  of  all,  gladly  answering 
an  imperious  summons  to  disregard  even  the  laws  of  gravi- 
tation, to  surrender  even  the  personality  of  a  satellite,  to 
rush  headlong  to  a  union  that  secured  enlargement  of  the 
sun  by  the  quenching  and  absorption  of  the  star.  And  for 
this,  his  only  punishment  was  the  refusal,  incredible,  pre- 
sumptuous, on  the  part  of  a  succession  of  chosen  stars  to 
surrender,  to  rush,  to  be  absorbed.  His  utmost  penalty 
was  the  decree  that  he  must  be  content  with  the  indifferent 
attendance  of  a  weary  moon  whose  own  light  had  grown 
cold  and  who  avowed  an  allegiance  at  the  most,  dutiful, 
quite  disillusioned,  and  granted  because  of  a  pressure  that 
amounted  to  compulsion. 

Externally  his  situation  is  prosperous  and  respectable. 
He  remains  an  aristocrat  of  wealth  and  station,  "  the  hu- 
mour of  whom,"  as  his  own  author  says,1  "scarcely  dim- 
ples the  surface  and  is  distinguishable  but  by  very  pene- 
trative, very  wicked  imps,  whose  fits  of  roaring  below  at 
some  generally  imperceptible  stroke  of  his  quality,  have  first 
made  the  mild  literary  angels  aware  of  something  comic 
in  him,"  and  whose  figure  therefore  never  becomes  pal- 
pably absurd.  Only  by  the  "  detective  vision  "  of  the  imps 
is  he  seen  poised  on  the  pinnacle  of  absurdity,  while  the 
Pecksniffs  and  Becky  Sharps  of  the  world  cluster  around 
its  base. 

The  poetic  justice  of  this  comedy  in  narrative  is  per- 

1  The  Egoist,  5. 


THE     REALISTIC  IO5 

feet  because  the  pit  the  victim  falls  into  is  one  of  his  own 
digging  and  the  digging  is  of  his  own  volition  (popularly 
speaking,  without  reference  to  the  metaphysics  of  deter- 
minism). From  the  first  moment  of  Sir  Willoughby's 
philandering  with  Laetitia  Dale  to  the  last  unlucky  turn- 
ing of  the  key  in  young  Crossjay's  room,  all  was  spon- 
taneous, a  long  list  of  self-indulgences  that  turned  into 
self-avengers.  It  was  not  essential  that  he  should  play 
upon  the  sentimental  romanticism  of  his  adoring  fem- 
inine neighbor;  nor  that  he  should  protest  so  emphati- 
cally to  Clara  that  he  never  never  could  by  any  possi- 
bility bring  himself  to  marry  Laetitia;  nor  that  he  should 
himself  provide  a  witness  to  his  overcoming  of  that  boasted 
impossibility, — and  make  the  sacrifice  for  nothing  after  all, 
— when  the  absence  of  a  witness  would  have  saved  the  day 
for  him.  But  having  done  all  these  things  he  had  to  pay 
the  price,  though  it  rendered  him  bankrupt  in  vanity,  and 
for  him  that  was  bankruptcy  indeed. 

Yet  for  all  that  he  is  food  for  mirth,  one  must  yield  to 
a  lurking  sympathy  for  the  unhappy  Patterne.  A  wound 
is  a  wound  and  may  cause  exquisite  pain,  even  if  inflicted 
only  on  self-love.  A  Pecksniff  and  a  Becky  are  invulner- 
able; he  is  protected  from  pelting  rain  by  his  own  oiliness, 
she  by  her  inimitable  faculty  for  borrowing  umbrellas. 
Laetitia  was  indeed  finally  secured  as  Sir  Willoughby's 
umbrella,  but  not  before  he  had  been  alarmingly  threat- 
tened  if  not  actually  soaked. 

If  we  measured  our  laughter  by  the  real  feelings  of  its 
object  instead  of  our  conception  of  the  frivolity  or  sacred- 
ness  of  those  feelings,  we  should  undoubtedly  find  it  much 
diminished.  We  could  not  enjoy  the  predicament  of  Sir 
Willoughby  or  Sir  John  Falstaff  or  Malvolio  or  any  of  the 
notable  company  of  the  Mighty  Fallen.  Whereas  we  do 


IO6       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

enjoy  them  with  unrestrained  relish  on  the  supposition 
that  their  fall  is  not  that  of  a  Caesar  or  a  Napoleon.  Yet 
these  also  were  egoists,  and  those  would  fain  have  been 
conquering  heroes.  Meredith  testifies  to  this  in  his  pre- 
liminary analysis: 1 

"The  Egoist  surely  inspires  pity.  He  who  would  desire  to 
clothe  himself  at  everybody's  expense,  and  is  of  that  desire 
condemned  to  strip  himself  stark  naked,  he,  if  pathos  ever  had 
a  form,  might  be  taken  for  the  actual  person." 

In  addition  to  these  instances  where  the  continual  and 
final  absurdity  of  the  situation  is  made  the  motif  of  the 
novel,  there  are  several  cases  of  minor  episodes,  quite  as 
suggestive  though  on  a  smaller  scale. 

Dickens  is,  as  might  be  supposed,  the  most  fertile  in 
these  scenes  of  comic  retribution.  Aside  from  Pecksniff 
and  Uriah  Heep,  he  is  most  successful  with  the  Lammles, 
Mr.  Dorrit,  and  Silas  Wegg. 

The  Veneering  Dinner,  which  introduces  Our  Mutual 
Friend,  is  only  an  understudy  to  the  Veneering  Break- 
fast, which  celebrates  the  marriage  of  two  of  the  Ven- 
eerings'  oldest  friends. 

"  But,  there  is  another  time  to  come,  and  it  comes  in  about  a 
fortnight,  and  it  comes  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lammle  on  the  sands 
at  Shanklin,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight. 

"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lammle  have  walked  for  some  time  on  the 
Shanklin  sands,  and  one  may  see  by  their  foot-prints  that  they 
have  not  walked  arm-in-arm,  and  that  they  have  not  walked 
in  a  straight  track,  and  that  they  have  walked  in  a  moody 
humour;  for,  the  lady  has  prodded  little  spirting  holes  in  the 
damp  sand  before  her  with  her  parasol,  and  the  gentleman  has 
trailed  his  stick  after  him.  As  if  he  were  of  the  Mephistopheles 
family  indeed,  and  had  walked  with  a  drooping  tail."  2 

1  The  Egoisty  5.  *  Our  Mutual  Friend,  I,  166. 


THE     REALISTIC 

It  is  not  an  angelic  council  that  follows,  though  it  has 
the  virtues  of  candor,  contrition,  and  a  judicious  conclu- 
sion, proposed  by  the  Belial  of  the  conference,  to  make 
the  best  of  a  bad  bargain  by  forming  a  union  of  intrigue 
against  the  world  in  general  and  the  diabolical  Veneerings 
in  particular.  Thus  mutual  in  greed,  in  gullibility,  in 
consequent  remorse,  and  in  unholy  alliance,  this  pair  of 
frauds  form  the  real  mutuality  of  Dickens'  Vanity  Fair. 

Silas  Wegg  and  William  Dorrit  stand  at  the  two  ex- 
tremes, for  one  is  farcical  and  the  other  tragic,  yet  they 
meet  on  a  common  ground,  the  comedy  of  exposure.  The 
farcical  villain  may  be  dismissed  with  the  comment  that 
his  dramatic  exit,  though  richly  done,  bears  some  marks 
of  the  childishness  and  vulgarity  that  his  author  could 
not  always  avoid.  The  tragic  comedian,  on  the  other 
hand,  stands  before  us  in  an  unconscious  self-betrayal  no 
less  impressive  and  startling  in  its  way  than  that  of  the 
sleep-walking  Lady  Macbeth.  Nowhere  in  English  lit- 
erature, indeed,  is  there  a  picture  more  awful  in  its  sim- 
ple inevitability  than  the  eloquent  speech  addressed  to  the 
guests  at  Mrs.  Merdle's  dinner  table  by  the  affable,  pat- 
ronizing Father  of  the  Marshalsea. 

Such  ironic  penalizings  as  these  are  satires  of  circum- 
stances, sport  which  beguiles  the  ennuied  Immortals.  Im- 
measurably lower  in  the  scale  is  the  practical  joke  in- 
dulged in  by  mortals;  yet  in  such  deeds  we  may  reckon 
Mistresses  Ford  and  Page,  Sir  Toby  and  Maria,  as  human 
deputies  acting  for  a  requiting  destiny.  Perhaps  our  best 
example  of  this  obvious  but  joyous  kind  of  satire  is  one 
found  in  almost  the  first  novel  of  almost  the  first  name  on 
our  list,  Lytton's  Pelbam.  It  is  the  Parisian  incident  of 
the  amorous  M.  Margot  and  the  clever  Mrs.  Green, 
wherein  the  conceit  and  credulity  of  the  former  is  played 


IO8       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

upon  by  the  shrewd  and  merry  malice  of  the  latter,  until 
he  finds  himself  distressingly  suspended  in  a  basket  from 
her  lofty  window  late  in  a  chilly  night,  to  the  great 
amusement  of  divers  spectators  previously  invited  there 
for  that  purpose. 

Much  more  subtle  and  hence  much  more  intellectually 
satisfying  is  the  trap  in  which  another  amorous  gentleman, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Slope,  is  caught  by  another  clever  lady, 
Signora  Neroni.1 

"Mr.  Slope  was  madly  in  love,  but  hardly  knew  it.  The 
signora  spitted  him,  as  a  boy  does  a  cockchafer  on  a  cork,  that 
she  might  enjoy  the  energetic  agony  of  his  gyrations.  And 
she  knew  very  well  what  she  was  doing." 

In  their  memorable  interview  the  accomplished  Phoe- 
dria  led  this  poor  Cymochles  into  a  fearful,  tangled  web, 
there  to  struggle  and  flounder  until  she  released  him  with 
mocking  scorn,  having  illustrated  perfectly  Meredith's 
remark  about  another  and  more  famous  egoist : 2 

"A  lover  pretending  too  much  by  one  foot's  length  of  pre- 
tense, will  have  that  foot  caught  in  her  trap." 

Even  then,  however,  fate  had  not  done  her  worst,  for 
the  cockchafer  was  literally  to  be  slapped  in  the  face  by 
the  more  direct  and  active  Eleanor  Bold.  The  comment 
on  this  latter  scene  may  be  cited  as  an  example  of  the  mock 
heroic  vein  occasionally  used  in  the  service  of  satire  from 
Swift  and  Fielding  on.3 

"But  how  shall  I  sing  the  divine  wrath  of  Mr.  Slope,  or  how 
invoke  the  tragic  muse  to  describe  the  rage  which  swelled  the 
celestial  bosom  of  the  bishop's  chaplain  ?  Such  an  undertaking 

1Trollope:  Barchester  Towers,  299. 

*  The  Egoist,  4.    The  "her"  refers  to  Comedy. 

3  Barchester  Towers,  472-3. 


THE     REALISTIC  IO9 

by  no  means  befits  the  low-heeled  buskin  of  modern  fiction. 
The  painter  put  a  veil  over  Agamemnon's  face  when  called  on 
to  depict  the  father's  grief  at  the  early  doom  of  his  devoted 
daughter.  The  god,  when  he  resolved  to  punish  the  rebellious 
winds,  abstained  from  mouthing  empty  threats.  We  will  not 
attempt  to  tell  with  what  mighty  surgings  of  the  inner  heart 
Mr.  Slope  swore  to  revenge  himself  on  the  woman  who  had 
disgraced  him,  nor  will  we  vainly  strive  to  depict  his  deep 
agony  of  soul. 

"There  he  is,  however,  alone  in  the  garden-walk,  and  we  must 
contrive  to  bring  him  out  of  it.  *  *  *  He  stood  motionless, 
undecided,  glaring  with  his  eyes,  thinking  of  the  pains  and 
penalties  of  Hades,  and  meditating  how  he  might  best  devote  his 
enemy  to  the  infernal  gods  with  all  the  passion  of  his  accus- 
tomed eloquence.  He  longed  in  his  heart  to  be  preaching  at  her. 
'Twas  thus  that  he  was  ordinarily  avenged  of  sinning  mortal 
men  and  women.  Could  he  at  once  have  ascended  his  Sunday 
rostrum  and  fulminated  at  her  such  denunciations  as  his  spirit 
delighted  in,  his  bosom  would  have  been  greatly  eased." 

The  routing  of  this  clergyman  is  balanced  by  the  tri- 
umph of  another,  in  a  later  volume  of  the  series,  though 
in  an  entirely  different  cause.1  None  of  our  novelists  has 
given  us  a  more  delectable  scene  than  the  one  which 
marked  the  culmination  of  those  triangular  interviews 
with  which  Bishop  Proudie's  study  was  so  familiar.  Here 
Mrs.  Proudie,  that  mighty  Amazon,  is  brought  low,  and 
that,  through  a  dastardly  blow  of  fate,  by  a  foe  unworthy 
of  her  steel,  albeit  she  had  not  considered  him  unworthy 
of  her  persecution.  She  is  now  made  to  endure  two  kinds 
of  anguish,  both  new  and  both  terrible.  The  first  is  being 
ignored.  The  second  is  being  talked  back  to  and  then 
left  before  she  can  reply.  It  is  a  glorious  moment  for  all 
but  the  defeated  when  one  weary  badgered  opponent 

1  Last  Chronicles  of  Ear  set. 


IIO       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

thunders  at  her,  "Peace,  Woman !"  and  adds  that  she 
would  better  be  minding  her  distaff;  and  another  weary 
badgered  opponent,  her  sleek  and  pampered  husband, 
jumps  from  his  chair  at  the  sound,  not  in  anger  at  the  un- 
chivalrous  Mr.  Crawley  but  in  admiration  of  his  incred- 
ible courage  and  astounding  victory. 

Of  these  various  roads  open  to  the  writer  of  satirical 
intent,  those  just  indicated,  by  direct  reflection  and  by 
dramatic  scenes,  are  in  the  nature  of  by-ways.  They  are 
for  the  most  part  occasional  and  incidental;  valuable 
chiefly  as  securing  the  piquant  and  diversified  effect  nec- 
essary to  the  literature  that  aims  to  amuse,  even  when  the 
amusement  itself  is  secondary  in  the  real  design. 

The  main  highway  is  that  of  character.  By  the  kind 
of  characters  he  can  create  and  by  his  attitude  toward 
them  shall  the  novelist  be  known.  There  are  the  idealized, 
the  respected,  the  beloved,  the  censured,  the  anathema- 
tized. The  group  selected  for  our  especial  concern  in  this 
study  is  formed  of  those  pilloried  by  the  rebuke  humorous. 
Such,  however, — the  comic  and  therefore  the  ridiculed, — 
are  objects  of  satire  and  accordingly  more  suitably  con- 
sidered in  the  following  section.  It  is  the  opposite  class 
that  constitutes  a  factor  in  satiric  method.  This  phase 
of  the  discussion  will  therefore  be  confined  to  the  wits, 
those  who  may  be  called  satirists  in  their  own  right,  and  so 
used  by  the  author  as  a  dramatic  means  to  his  satiric  end. 

Wit  is  the  diamond  of  the  intellectual  world,  precious 
on  account  of  its  rarity,  its  brilliancy,  and  the  sense  of  in- 
finite time,  matter,  and  compression  that  have  gone  into 
its  transformation  from  common  charcoal.  Brevity  is 
indeed  an  element  of  it;  but  its  soul  is  perception,  a 
vision  at  once  quick  and  penetrating,  the  radio-activity 
of  the  mind. 


THE     REALISTIC  III 

Being  such,  it  has  the  in  frequence  that  marks  all  ex- 
cellence, both  in  life  and  its  mirrored  reflection.  There  is 
much  of  an  unsatiric  and  subintellectual  order,  the  kind 
that  comes  from  ingenuity  and  cunning,  and  takes  the 
shape  of  pranks  and  jests  for  the  fun  of  them;  manifest 
in  Diccon,  Autolycus,  and  the  Court  Fools, — though  these 
last  often  have  much  meat  in  them.  Then  there  is  the 
clever  befooling  for  a  purpose,  as  seen  in  Portia,  getting 
her  own  ring  by  a  subterfuge;  or  Kate  Hardcastle,  stoop- 
ing to  conquer.  There  is  also  the  bitter  temper  which  an- 
imates a  Katherina,  checkmated  only  by  a  Petruchio; 
this  produces  too  a  Thersites  to  be  the  cheese  and  diges- 
tion of  Achilles;  and  Cleopatra,  gibing  at  "the  married 
woman." 

Wit,  however,  is  something  more  than  merriment  or 
malice;  and  short  is  the  list  of  its  worthy  examples.  Ly- 
sistrata  is  not  only  a  vigorous  feminist  but  pungent  on  the 
theme.  Pertelote  and  the  Wife  of  Bath  illumine  masculine 
superstition  and  conservatism.  Benedict  and  Beatrice 
sparkle  by  mutual  concussion.  The  melancholy  Jaques 
and  the  melancholy  Dane  are  the  finest  of  satiric  philoso- 
phers. Subtle  the  Alchemist  enjoys  with  a  huge  private 
relish  the  gullibility  he  exploits.  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  graces 
with  gayety  the  professional  pretense  and  policy  he  ex- 
poses. These  compose  a  distinctive  and  exclusive  com- 
pany, and  few  there  are  who  may  be  added  unto  them. 

Within  the  novel  the  proportion  is  almost  as  small.  The 
most  noteworthy  prototypes  to  Victorian  fiction  are  Mat- 
thew Bramble  and,  in  a  girlish  fashion,  Evelina.  (Lady 
Emily,  in  Susan  Ferrier's  Marriage,  might  be  included). 
But  these,  through  the  thin  guise  of  letters,  are  Smollett 
and  Burney  as  completely  as  Gulliver  and  Shandy  are 
Swift  and  Sterne  through  the  thinner  guise  of  the  dramatic 


112       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

monologue.  More  objective  are  Jane  Austen's  Mr.  Ben- 
net  and  his  daughter  Elizabeth.  The  former  particularly 
is  a  satiric  soloist  acting  as  Greek  chorus  to  the  follies  of 
his  wife,  daughters,  and  certain  young  men. 

This  delightful  relationship  between  father  and  daugh- 
ter, a  sort  of  satiric  defensive  alliance  against  the  besieg- 
ing army  of  silly  exactions  and  vexations,  finds  a  clear  if 
fainter  echo  in  that  of  Dr.  Gibson  and  Molly  (in  Mrs. 
GaskelFs  Wives  and  Daughters) ,  who  plan  in  the  temporary 
absence  of  the  elegant  stepmother  to  do  "everything  that 
is  unrefined  and  ungenteel." 

The  exponents  of  satiric  wit  in  the  Victorian  novel  may 
be  thrown  for  convenience  into  three  or  four  divisions. 

There  is  the  native  or  rustic  type,  whose  shrewd  obser- 
vations are  condensed  into  homely  but  poignant  epigrams. 
That  such  characters  have  always  existed  is  evident  from 
the  existence  of  a  whole  literature  of  proverbial  philosophy, 
of  anonymous  origin,  like  ballads  and  fabliaux.  Conspic- 
uous in  the  van  of  the  few  who  have  been  lifted  from  this 
obscure  anonymity  is  the  redoubtable  Mrs.  Poyser.  It 
is  no  valid  discount  to  George  Eliot's  achievement  to  say 
she  produced  only  one  Mrs.  Poyser.  Indeed,  it  might 
add  something  to  her  luster  to  note  that  no  other  novelist 
has  produced  even  one. 

The  only  other  deserving  of  mention  is  a  countryman  in 
Lyt ton's  What  Will  He  Do  with  //,  chosen  in  this  case  also 
because  he  illustrates  the  generic  class  of  stage-drivers, 
whose  brightest  light  is  the  American  Yuba  Bill.  This  one 
is  described  in  the  chapter  heading  1  as  "a  charioteer,  to 
whom  an  experience  of  British  Laws  suggests  an  inge- 
nious mode  of  arresting  the  progress  of  Roman  Papacy." 
He  discourses  to  his  passenger: 2 

1  Book  II,  Chapter  I.  *  Vol.  I,  78-9. 


THE     REALISTIC  113 

"My  wife's  grandfather  was  put  into  Chancery  just  as  he 
was  growing  up,  and  never  grew  afterwards — never  got  out  o' 
it.  Nout  ever  does.  There's  our  church  warden  comes  to  me 
with  a  petition  to  sign  agin  the  Pope.  Says  I,  'that  old  Pope 
is  always  in  trouble — what's  he  bin  doin'  now?'  Says  he, 
'Spreading!  He's  agot  into  Parlyment,  and  now  he's  got  a 
colledge,  and  we  pays  for  it.  I  doesn't  know  how  to  stop  him.' 
Says  I,  'Put  the  Pope  into  Chancery  along  with  wife's  grand- 
father, and  he'll  never  spread  agin.'" 

The  urban  counterpart  of  this  type  is  the  child  of  the 
city  streets,  of  which  we  have  specimens  in  the  sophisti- 
cated gamins,  the  Artful  Dodger  and  Dick  Swiveller.  In 
this  Dickens  has  a  monopoly,  such  as  it  is. 

Coming  up  from  the  ranks,  we  reach  the  intellectual 
aristocrat,  whose  culture  enables  him  to  add  polish  to  his 
satiric  pith  and  point.  It  happens  that  the  two  most  rep- 
resentative characters  of  this  type  are  furnished  by  the  two 
authors  who  stand  at  chronological  extremes,  though  the 
volumes  in  which  they  occur  are  only  three  years  apart.1 

Kenelm  Chillingly  is  the  melancholy  Victorian.  After 
the  initial  lapse  into  a  bit  of  grotesque  caricature  in  the 
account  of  his  babyhood, — a  thing  that  would  have  been 
avoided  by  a  writer  of  more  restrained  taste, — the  author 
paints  his  portrait  with  skill,  distinction,  and  truth.  His 
Coming  of  Age  speech  to  the  assembled  tenants  and  guests 
on  that  joyful  occasion  is  truly  startling,  but  far  from  in- 
credible. The  audacious  youngster,  with  his  grave,  se- 
rene, matter  of  fact  pessimism,  exposes  in  a  searching 
analysis  the  discrepancy  between  the  supposed  reality 
they  were  felicitating  themselves  and  him  upon  and  an 
ideal  which  is  quite  beyond  their  comprehension.  Yet  it 
is  an  unquestionably  practical  ideal,  and  it  breaks  like  a 

1Lytton's  Kenelm  Chillingly ,  1873,  and  Meredith's  Beauchamp's  Career^  1876. 


114       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

slow,  cold,  somber  light  through  the  shallow  sentiment 
that  had  been  screening  some  disconcerting  depths. 

It  is  true,  he  says,  that  the  Chillingly s  come  from  a  re- 
mote race,  but  length  of  tenure  has  meant  only  so  much 
more  inanity.1 

"They  were  born  to  eat  as  long  as  they  could  eat,  and  when 
they  could  eat  no  longer  they  died.  Not  that  in  this  respect 
they  were  a  whit  less  insignificant  than  the  generality  of  their 
fellow  creatures." 

He  reminds  his  gaping,  rural  audience  that  man  merely 
represents  a  stage  in  the  course  of  evolution.2 

"The  probability  is  that,  some  day  or  other,  we  shall  be  ex- 
terminated by  a  new  development  of  species." 

He  goes  on  ruthlessly  to  assert  that,  contrary  to  the  pop- 
ular belief,  his  father  was  not  a  good  landlord,  because 
he  was  too  indulgent  to  the  individual  and  too  heedless 
of  national  welfare,  ignoring  the  highest  duty  of  the  em- 
ployer, maximum  production  through  competitive  ex- 
amination. As  to  his  own  college  record: 3 

"Some  of  the  most  useless  persons — especially  narrow- 
minded  and  bigoted — have  acquired  far  higher  honours  at  the 
university  than  have  fallen  to  my  lot." 

And  then,  after  a  brilliant  Schopenhauerish  conclusion,  he 
drinks  to  their  very  good  healths. 

Thus  launched,  the  meditative  young  man  continues  in 
a  career  of  ironic  candor,  although  he  learns  later  the  wis- 
dom of  being  candid  only  with  oneself  at  times,  and  less 
communicative  to  others;  as  for  instance  when  he  solilo- 
quizes on  a  request  by  farmer  Saunderson: 4 

1  Lytton's  Kenelm  Chillingly,  38. 

2  Ibid.,  39.    An  echo  from  The  Coming  Race,  published  two  years  earlier. 
*  Ibid.,  40. 

4  Ibid.,  90.    Later  he  imagines  a  hypothetical  contribution  to  The  Londoner. 


THE     REALISTIC 

'One  can't  wonder  why  every  small  man  thinks  it  so  pleasant 
to  let  down  a  big  one,  when  a  father  asks  a  stranger  to  let  down 
his  own  son  for  even  fancying  that  he  is  not  small  beer.  It  is 
upon  that  principle  in  human  nature  that  criticism  wisely 
relinquishes  its  pretensions  as  an  analytical  science,  and  be- 
comes a  lucrative  profession.  It  relies  on  the  pleasure  its  readers 
find  in  letting  a  man  down." 

Dr.  Shrapnel  is  a  sad  and  tragic  figure,  bowed  by  an  al- 
truistic grief  at  the  state  of  human  affairs,  yet  over  his 
clouded  sky  play  some  sharp  lightning  flashes;  witness  his 
vivid  simile  describing  the  Tories,  thus  reported: 1 

"He  compares  them  to  geese  claiming  possession  of  the  whole 
common,  and  hissing  at  every  foot  of  ground  they  have  to  yield. 
They're  always  having  to  retire  and  always  hissing.  'Retreat 
and  menace,'  that's  the  motto  for  them." 

There  are  a  few  characters  remaining  who  cannot  be 
omitted  from  this  group  of  witty  satirists,  who  do  not 
quite  belong  to  any  of  the  above  classes,  and  who  do  have 
a  common  bond,  though  only  the  artificial  one  of  feminin- 
ity. They  must  therefore  be  mentioned  as  Women;  Mrs. 
Poyser  being  summoned  for  a  second  enrollment,  and  Mrs. 
Cadwallader  added.  It  is  true  that  their  animadversions 
are  largely  directed  against  some  faults  in  the  prevailing 
system  of  courtship,  marriage,  and  a  masculine-managed 

bringing  "that  highly  intellectual  journal  into  discredit  by  a  feeble  attempt  at  a 
good-natured  criticism  or  a  generous  sentiment."  161. 

Kenelrn  grows  into  some  likeness  to  his  old  tutor  Welby,  an  unpedantic, 
versatile  scholar,  who  belonged  to  "the  school  of  Eclectical  Christology." 
The  Rev.  John  Chillingly,  for  instance,  did  not  perceive  Welby's  realism, 
for  the  latter  listened  to  idealistic  eulogies  without  contradicting  them;  having 
"grown  too  indolent  to  be  combative  in  conversation,  and  only  as  a  critic 
betrayed  such  pugnacity  as  remained  to  him  by  the  polished  cruelty  of 
sarcasm."  34. 

1  Beauchamp*s  Career,  167. 


Il6       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

universe,  but  not  exclusively  so,  nor  are  they  the  only  crit- 
ics of  those  subjects. 

Two  others  besides  George  Eliot  have  made  a  single 
but  notable  contribution  to  this  list,  Thackeray  and  Char- 
lotte Bronte.  Rebecca  Sharp  is  too  well  known  to  need 
more  than  appreciative  mention.  Shirley  Keeldar  is  in- 
teresting as  being  what  the  author's  sister  Emily  might 
have  been."  She  is  a  spicily  sweet,  lovable  character, 
clearly  presented  both  in  action  and  in  such  touches  of 
description  as,1 

"*  *  *  ever  ready  to  satirize  her  own  or  any  other  person's 
enthusiasm,  she  would  have  given  a  farm  of  her  best  land  for  a 
chance  of  rendering  good  service." 

She  converses  with  her  friend  Caroline  about  literature: 2 

"Milton  was  great;  but  was  he  good?  His  brain  was  right; 
how  was  his  heart?  *  *  *  Milton  tried  to  see  the  first 
woman;  but,  Cary,  he  saw  her  not.  *  *  *  It  was  his  cook 
that  he  saw;  or  it  was  Mrs.  Gill,  *  *  *  preparing  a  cold 
collation  for  the  rectors.  *  *  *  I  would  beg  to  remind  him 
that  the  first  men  of  the  earth  were  Titans,  and  that  Eve  was 
their  mother." 

In  a  spirited  speech  to  Uncle  Sympson,  who  craved  to 
get  rid  of  the  exasperating  minx  by  disposing  of  her  in  res- 
pectable matrimony,  she  baits  and  badgers  him  until  his 
feeble  intellect  is  nearly  shattered,  ideas  outraged,  temper 
twisted  beyond  repair.  No  Victorian  young  niece  should 
say  to  an  elderly  conventional  guardian:  3 

"Your  god,  sir,  is  the  World.  *  *  *  Your  great  Bel, 
your  fish-tailed  Dagon.  *  *  *  See  him  busied  at  the  work 
he  likes  best — making  marriages.  He  binds  the  young  to  the 

,  11,90.  2  Ibid.,  11,  351,  *  lhidmt  n,  2So. 


THE     REALISTIC 

old,  the  strong  to  the  imbecile.    He  stretches  out  the  arm  of 
Mezentius  and  fetters  the  dead  to  the  living." 

The  novelist  most  admittedly  generous  to  women  is 
Meredith,  and  we  have  him  to  thank  for  Margaret  Lovell/ 
Mrs.  Mountstuart  Jenkinson,  Diana  Warwick,  and  Clara 
Middleton,  with  Mrs.  Berry  as  a  sort  of  compromise  be- 
tween Mrs.  Poyser  and  Mrs.  Tulliver.  Yet  they  do  not 
any  more  than  live  up  to  their  boasted  reputations,  as 
dainty  rogues  in  porcelain,  famous  epigrammatists,  the 
quoted  astonishment  of  drawing-rooms.1 

The  real  Victorian  Shakespeare  in  the  matter  of  women 
is  Trollope.  Not  entirely  unworthy  of  the  sisterhood  of 
Beatrice,  Viola,  and  Portia,  are  Miss  Dunstable,  Lily  Dale, 
Lucy  Robarts,  and  Violet  Effingham;  Madeline  Stanhope 
might  be  added  as  a  village  Cleopatra. 

1  It  is  not  in  a  novel  but  the  shortest  of  his  Short  Stories  that  Meredith  has 
presented  to  us  his  truly  wittiest  character,  shown  with  the  brief  but  startling 
distinctness  of  a  flash-light.  Nowhere  is  there  a  more  perfect  embodiment  of 
the  satiric  spirit  than  Lady  Camper.  It  required  a  malicious  imagination  to 
produce  the  cartoons  of  the  City  of  Wilsonople,  and  to  use  them  with  such 
wicked  effectiveness.  Yet  this  Limb  of  Satan  was  maleficent  only  to  bless, 
ultimately.  The  fine  military  figure  upon  which  she  turned  the  shaft  of  illumina- 
tion is  equally  perfect  as  the  incarnate  satirizible;  not  a  sinner,  not  a  villain, 
but  a  complacent,  fatuous,  selfish  gentleman,  "open  to  exposure  in  his  little 
whims,  foibles,  tricks,  incompetencies,"  but  capable  of  an  improvement  that 
amounted  to  regeneration. 

"Well,  General,"  his  teleological  tormentor  finally  explains,  "you  were  fond 
of  thinking  of  yourself,  and  I  thought  I  would  assist  you.  I  gave  you  plenty  of 
subject-matter.  I  will  not  say  I  meant  to  work  a  homoeopathic  cure." 

She  further  admonishes  him  that  the  triumph  is  his  rather  than  hers,  if  he 
cares  to  make  the  most  of  it.  "Your  fault  has  been  to  quit  active  service, 
General,  and  love  your  ease  too  well  *  *  *  You  are  ten  times  the 
man  in  exercise.  Why,  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  would  have 
cared  for  those  drawings  of  mine  when  marching?"  Idleness,  moreover,  is  a 
first  aid  to  vanity.  "You  would  not  have  cared  one  bit  for  a  caricature,"  Lady 
Camper  continues,  "if  you  had  not  nursed  the  absurd  idea  of  being  one  of  our 
conquerors."  His  final  salvation,  she  concludes,  was  his  sensitiveness  to  rid- 
icule. 


Il8        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Lily  Dale  is  plaintively  sympathetic  on  the  subject  of 
the  sorrows  of  men  through  the  vexations  of  their  amuse- 
ments: * 

"Women  must  amuse  themselves,  except  for  an  annual  treat  or 
two.  But  the  catering  for  men's  sport  is  never  ending,  and  is 
always  paramount  to  everything  else.  And  yet  the  pet  game  of 
the  day  never  goes  off  properly.  In  partridge  time,  the  par- 
tridges are  wild  and  won't  come  to  be  killed.  In  hunting  time, 
the  foxes  won't  run  straight, — the  wretches.  They  show  no 
spirit,  and  will  take  to  ground  to  save  their  brushes.  Then  comes 
a  nipping  frost,  and  skating  is  proclaimed;  but  the  ice  is  always 
rough,  and  the  woodcocks  have  deserted  the  country.  And 
as  for  salmon, — when  the  summer  comes  round  I  do  really 
believe  that  they  suffer  a  great  deal  about  the  salmon.  I  am 
sure  they  never  catch  any.  So  they  go  back  to  their  clubs  and 
their  cards,  and  abuse  their  cooks  and  blackball  their  friends." 

As  to  the  adorable,  captivating  kind,  she  is  not  too  san- 
guine: 2 

"The  Apollos  of  the  world  *  *  *  who  are  so  full  of 
feeling,  so  soft-natured,  so  kind,  who  never  say  a  cross  word, 
who  never  get  out  of  bed  on  the  wrong  side  in  the  morning, — it 
so  often  turns  out  that  they  won't  wash." 

Of  Lucy  Robarts  Trollope  himself  speaks  with  justifi- 
able pride,  and  says  he  does  not  see  "how  any  character 
could  be  more  natural  than  she."  She  is  indeed  a  sunny, 
breezy,  English  maid,  endowed  with  charm,  enterprise, 
and  a  resourcefulness  that  could  outwit  with  dignity  the 
titled  dowager  who  did  not  want  to  be  her  mother-in-law. 
But  her  chief  distinction,  in  which  she  is  more  unusual  than 
"natural,"  is  the  possession  of  that  kind  of  humor  defined 
by  Howells  as  "  the  cry  of  pain  of  a  well-bred  man."  When 
her  pride  is  wounded,  her  love  baffled,  her  happiness  ap- 

1  Last  Chronicles  of  Barset,  97.  2  Ibid.,  175. 


THE     REALISTIC  119 

patently  shipwrecked,  her  course  of  action  made  most 
difficult,  she  is  able  to  say  to  her  sister: 1 

"Fanny,  you  have  no  idea  what  an  absolute  fool  I  am,  what 
an  unutterable  ass.  The  soft  words  of  which  I  tell  you  were  of 
the  kind  which  he  speaks  to  you  when  he  asks  you  how  the  cow 
gets  on  which  he  sent  you  from  Ireland,  or  to  Mark  about 
Ponto's  shoulder.  *  *  * 

"He  is  no  hero.  There  is  nothing  on  earth  wonderful  about 
him.  I  never  heard  him  say  a  single  word  of  wisdom,  or  utter 
a  thought  that  was  akin  to  poetry.  He  devotes  all  his  energies 
to  riding  after  a  fox  or  killing  poor  birds,  and  I  never  heard  of 
his  doing  a  single  great  action  in  my  life.  And  yet  *  *  *" 

In  tears  and  breathless  excitement  she  admits  the 
strength  and  reality  of  her  love,  and  continues  with  the 
diagnosis: 

"I'll  tell  you  what  he  has:  he  has  fine  straight  legs,  and  a 
smooth  forehead,  and  a  good-humoured  eye,  and  white  teeth. 
Was  it  possible  to  see  such  a  catalogue  of  perfections,  and  not 
fall  down,  stricken  to  the  very  bone?  But  it  was  not  that  that 
did  it  all,  Fanny.  I  could  have  stood  against  that,  I  think  I 
could,  at  least.  It  was  his  title  that  killed  me.  I  had  never 
spoken  to  a  lord  before." 

But  she  is  also  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  she  has  done 
some  injustice  to  her  own  romance  and  to  the  sincerity  of 
Lord  Lufton: 2 

"Well,  it  was  not  a  dream.  Here,  standing  here,  on  this  very 
spot — on  that  flower  of  the  carpet — he  begged  me  a  dozen 
times  to  be  his  wife.  I  wonder  whether  you  and  Mark  would 
let  me  cut  it  out  and  keep  it." 

No  solution  to  her  matrimonial  problem  being  offered, 
she  suggests  one: 3 

1  Framley  Pfinnnrcn  1"P  2  Framlfy  Parsonage,  264.  3  Ibid.,  266. 


I2O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"'And  what  shall  I  do  next?'  said  Lucy,  still  speaking  in  a 
tone  that  was  half  tragic  and  half  jeering. 

"'Do? 'said  Mrs.  Robarts. 

"'Yes,  something  must  be  done.  If  I  were  a  man  I  could 
go  to  Switzerland,  of  course;  or,  as  the  case  is  a  bad  one,  perhaps 
as  far  as  Hungary.  What  is  it  that  girls  do?  they  don't  die 
now-a-days,  I  believe.  *  *  *  I  have  got  a  piece  of  sack- 
cloth, and  I  mean  to  wear  that,  when  I  have  made  it  up/" 

We  are  relieved  to  hear  later  that  no  such  drastic  action 
was  necessary,  as  she  became  Lady  Lufton  and  was  able 
to  be  happy  without  overworking  her  sense  of  humor. 

These  instances  may  serve  to  indicate  the  general 
method  and  effect  of  so-called  realism  applied  to  satiric  in- 
tent, so  long  as  allowance  is  made  for  the  unreal  and  dis- 
torted nature  of  all  incomplete  and  isolated  cases,  butch- 
ered to  make  an  analytic  holiday. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   IRONIC 

The  science  of  Esthetics  is  a  tribute  to  our  zeal  in  at- 
tempting to  define  the  indefinable  word  beauty.  Nearly 
as  elusive  of  categoric  bondage  is  irony;  but  for  its  capture 
no  formal  scientific  crusade  has  as  yet  been  organized.  It 
is,  however,  whether  in  spite  of  its  vagueness  or  because 
of  it,  a  term  of  great  and  increasing  popularity.  No 
phrase  is  at  present  more  of  a  general  favorite  than  "The 
Irony  of  Fate,"  no  exclamation  more  frequent  than  "How 
ironic!"  In  this  expressive  and  impressive  utterance  there 
is  as  much  individual  variation  of  meaning  as  in  "How 
beautiful!"  And  it  coexists  with  as  much  possibility  of  a 
standardized  conception.  What  the  latter  may  be,  it  is  the 
business  of  the  student  of  the  subject  to  try  to  determine. 

The  etymology  and  early  usage  of  the  word  are  familiar 
enough.  Generically,  to  the  ancient  Greeks,  irony  meant 
dissimulation  in  speech;  specifically,  that  form  of  dissim- 
ulation used  by  Socrates  for  the  confusion  of  his  dialectic 
opponent,  consisting  on  the  part  of  the  wise  man  of  an  as- 
sumption of  ignorance  which  longed  for  enlightenment. 
On  this  bated  hook  were  caught  the  unwary  who  pretended 
to  wisdom  the  while  they  had  it  not,  lured  by  flattering 
inquiry  to  a  fatal  communicativeness. 

In  its  present  status  the  term  has  two  fairly  distinct 
divisions,  characterized  by  Bishop  Thirwall,  in  his  essay 
on  the  Irony  of  Sophocles,  as  the  verbal  and  the  practical. 
The  former  is  the  rhetorical  device  whereby  a  certain  idea 

121 


122        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

or  circumstance  is  implied  by  its  statement  in  terms  to  the 
contrary  or  to  the  opposite  effect.  The  latter  is  the  con- 
trast between  the  real  and  apparent  state  of  things,  or  be- 
tween the  expected  and  the  eventual,  commonly  described 
as  the  Irony  of  Fate.  A  third  form,  the  kind  known  as 
dramatic  irony,  might  be  mentioned,  though  it  is  really  a 
subdivision  of  cosmic  irony.1  For  the  actor  makes  his 
blunders  and  gets  into  his  predicaments  through  igno- 
rance; and  this  discrepancy  between  his  notion  of  things 
and  their  actuality  adds  zest  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  spec- 
tator, who  is  in  the  secret.  So  the  great  unseen  Spectator 
is  conceived  to  observe  the  stage  of  the  world,  and  derive 
the  amusement  of  superior  knowledge  from  that 

"Which,  for  the  Pastime  of  Eternity, 
He  doth  himself  contrive,  enact,  behold." 

Among  these  varieties,  and  between  all  of  them  and  the 
original  meaning,  there  must  be  enough  common  ground 
to  account  for  the  persistence  of  the  terminology  through 
the  centuries,  allowing  for  the  divergence  natural  to  a  slow 
and  half  conscious  evolution.  This  common  ground  of 
denotation  is  of  course  dissimulation,  whether  in  the  re- 
stricted field  of  knowledge,  or  the  complete  reversal  of 
statement  and  intention,  or  the  specious  show  of  things 
whereby  we  are  deluded  into  an  erroneous  supposition  or 
a  false  sense  of  security.  But  this  simple  matter  of  decep- 
tion is  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of  connotation  that  is 
charged  with  complication  and  subtlety. 

The  ironic  habit  of  speech  is  a  sign  of  a  mind  imaginative 
and  averse  to  the  obvious.  Its  indulgence  indicates  a  love 

*On  dramatic  irony,  see  American  Philological  Association  Transactions,  1917, 
for  summary  of  an  interesting  unpublished  paper  read  before  the  Society  by 
Dr.  J.  S.  P.  Tatlock. 


THEIRONIC  1 23 

of  concealment,  from  aesthetic  motives,  and  a  corresponding 
abhorrence  of  flat,  naive  exposure.  The  ironist  has  taken 
the  veil  of  covertness  to  protect  himself  from  the  garish 
overt  day.1  Its  reception,  on  the  other  hand,  is  an  equally 
sure  indicator  of  disposition.  For  it  is  beloved  of  its  own 
kin,  deep  answering  unto  deep,  and  distrusted  by  the 
alien  with  a  repulsion  as  strong  as  that  of  the  subtle  for 
the  simple.  To  understand  or  not  to  understand  the  ironic 
is  an  acid  test  of  the  literal  mind.  An  apposite  reference 
to  this  fact  is  found  in  a  comment  on  one  of  our  novelists.2 

"Some  simple-minded  people  are  revolted,  even  in  literature, 
by  the  ironical  method;  and  tell  the  humourist,  with  an  air  of 
moral  disapproval,  that  they  never  know  whether  he  is  in  jest 
or  in  earnest.  To  such  matter-of-fact  persons  Mr.  Disraeli's 
novels  must  be  a  standing  offense,  for  it  is  his  most  characteristic 
peculiarity  that  the  passage  from  one  phase  to  the  other  is  im- 
perceptible." 

Another  reason  for  the  prejudice  against  ironic  language 
may  be  that  it  is  popularly  supposed  to  emanate  from  a 

1  As  advised  by  John  Brown  in  his  Essay  on  Satire: 

"The  Muse's  charms  resistless  then  assail, 
When  wrapt  in  irony's  transparent  veil; 
***** 

Then  be  your  lines  with  sharp  encomiums  grac'd; 
Style  Clodius  honorable,  Busa  chaste." 

And  not  long  before  this,  Dryden  had  been  saying:  "How  easy  it  is  to  call 
rogue  and  villain,  and  that  wittily!  But  how  hard  to  make  a  man  appear  a  fool, 
a  blockhead,  or  a  knave,  without  using  any  of  these  opprobrious  terms!  *  *  * 
Neither  is  it  true  that  this  fineness  of  raillery  is  offensive.  A  witty  man  is 
tickled  while  he  is  hurt  in  this  manner,  and  a  fool  feels  it  not."  Essay  on  Satire, 
98. 

8  Stephen:  Hours  in  a  Library,  Second  Series.    347. 

Another  critic  of  another  novelist  makes  the  point  by  a  vivid  illustration: 

"A  rabbit  fondling  its  own  harmless  face  affords  no  matter  of  amusement 
to  another  rabbit,  and  Miss  Austen  has  had  many  readers  who  have  perused 
her  works  without  a  smile."  Raleigh:  The  English  Novel,  253. 


124       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

caustic  soul,  with  leanings  toward  cynicism;  an  error  due 
to  a  narrow  identification  of  irony  with  its  extreme  right 
wing, — sarcasm,  which  is  indeed,  as  its  etymology  would 
signify,  a  flesh-tearing,  or  at  least  heart-rending,  perform- 
ance, belonging,  as  Bishop  Hall  would  say,  to  the  toothed 
division  of  satire. 

But  on  the  extreme  left  sits  banter,  entirely  amiable 
and  even  affectionate.  "You  scamp,  you  rascal,  you 
young  villain!"  is  a  favorite  way  of  expressing  parental 
pride  and  tenderness.  Reticent  youth  apostrophizes  his 
cherished  friend  as  an  "old  fraud."  "Philosophic  irony," 
says  Anatole  France,  "is  indulgent  and  gentle."  1  And 
Symonds  2  describes  Ariosto  as  watching  "  the  doings  of 
humanity  with  a  genial  half  smile,  an  all  pervasive  irony 
that  had  no  sting  in  it."  Ranging  thus  from  the  playful 
to  the  ferocious,  irony  is  at  its  best  when  not  too  near  either 
margin,  having  in  itself  more  point  than  banter  and  more 
polish  than  sarcasm.  "They  are  all,"  says  another  critic,3 
"with  others  of  the  family,  in  the  regular  service  of  Satire." 

The  metaphor  of  service  may  be  allowed,  in  that  satire, 
being  the  largest  and  most  general  type,  includes  the  others. 
The  relationship  may  be  stated  more  literally  by  saying 
that  irony  is  the  form  of  humorous  criticism  which  is  ex- 
pressed through  innuendo,  partly  because  of  preference 
for  verbal  inversion,  and  partly  in  recognition  of  the  topsy- 
turvydom of  life.  All  irony  is  therefore  satirical,  though 
not  all  satire  is  ironical.  The  ironist  conveys  his  own 
point  of  view  by  stating  another's,  condemning  by  appear- 
ing to  approve,  or  vice  versa.  Boisterousness  and  didac- 
ticism are  foreign  to  irony  and  not  to  be  feared  so  long  as 
it  is  dominant.  Perfection  in  its  employment  indicates 

1  Life  and  Lettersy  I,  207.  2  The  Renaissance  in  Italy,  V,  8. 

3  Irony  y  Living  Aget  259:  250. 


THE     IRONIC  125 

that  complete  self-control  which  is  supposed  to  be  a  pa- 
trician trait. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  ironic  usage  or  atti- 
tude has  been  confined  to  the  upper  social  stratum  as  its 
special  prerogative.  Nietzsche  may  indeed  exclaim,  "We 
should  look  upon  the  needs  of  the  masses  with  ironic  com- 
passion :  they  want  something  which  we  have  got — Ah ! " 
But  these  compassionated  masses  have  themselves  been 
capable  of  the  retort  ironic,  and  have  had  also  their  spokes- 
men, from  Lucian  to  Galsworthy.  In  The  Cock,  Lucian 
gives  an  ironic  enumeration  of  the  dangers  and  troubles 
of  the  rich  and  powerful,  and  displays  the  advantage  of 
being  poor  and  obscure.  In  The  Ferry,  Mycellus,  the  cob- 
bler, voices  an  ironic  lament  on  leaving  life,  and  parodies 
the  regrets  of  the  wealthy: l 

"Oh,  dear,  dear!  My  shoe-soles!  Oh!  My  old  boots!  Oh! 
What  will  become  of  my  rotten  sandals  ?  Alas,  poor  wretch  that 
I  am,  I  shall  no  longer  go  without  food  from  early  morning  until 
evening,  nor  in  winter  time  walk  barefoot  and  half  naked,  my 
teeth  chattering  from  the  cold.  Ah,  me!  Who,  forsooth,  is 
going  to  have  my  shoemaker's  knife  and  my  awl?" 

As  manner  of  speech  is  but  a  reflection  of  manner  of 
thought,  it  is  evident  that  the  ironist  is  not  sufficiently 
accounted  for  as  a  devotee  of  a  certain  verbal  device.  This, 
on  the  contrary,  is  only  an  external  manifestation  of  some- 
thing more  subjective  and  permanent, — a  mood  or  an  atti- 
tude which  may  enlarge  into  a  definite  interpretation  of 
life.  Of  this  interpretation  the  keynote  is  that  Fate  is  iron- 
ical. In  its  unmitigated  form  this  philosophy  declares  that 
there  is  a  deviltry  that  misshapes  our  ends,  construct  them 
how  we  will.  It  is  more  often  found,  however,  in  a  modi- 

1  A  Second  Century  Satirist,  187.    A  translation  by  W.  D.  Sheldon. 


126       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

fied  creed  which  admits  that  the  presence  of  this  perverse 
element  in  existence  does  not  prove  that  all  life  is  of  the 
same  piece;  that  the  mad  pranks  are  those  of  destiny's 
underlings,  dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority,  and  not  per- 
petrated by  the  ruler  of  the  universe. 

Such  speculations  lead  into  the  realm  of  religion,  and  re- 
ligion has  had  to  provide  a  place  in  its  pantheon  for  this 
spirit  of  disastrous  caprice.  There  it  lurks  under  various 
guises.  Baal  may  fall  asleep  or  go  on  a  journey  at  a  time 
most  inauspicious  for  his  followers.  The  behavior  of  the 
Olympians  quite  justifies  the  debate  between  Timocles 
and  Damis,  reported  by  Lucian,  as  to  the  theocratic  mis- 
management of  the  world.  Setebos  slays  and  saves  with 
an  eye  single  to  the  bewilderment  of  the  human  puppets. 
The  presiding  goddess  in  The  House  of  Fame  rewards  and 
punishes  with  a  similar  unaccountability.  "The  gods," 
says  Smollett  1  "not  yet  tired  with  sporting  with  the  farce 
of  human  government,  were  still  resolved  to  show  by  what 
inconsiderable  springs  a  mighty  empire  may  be  moved." 
Sport  is  a  need  also  of  the  President  of  the  Immortals,  and 
where  so  agreeably  found  as  in  undermining  the  patient 
structure  of  poor  little  Tess,  and  bringing  it  to  the  ground 
with  a  splendid  crash? 

The  essence  of  an  ironic  circumstance  lies  in  its  appar- 
ently wanton  thwarting  by  a  narrow  margin  of  a  normal 
sequence  in  itself  logical  and  desirable,  or  in  an  imposition 
of  calamity  on  the  same  exasperating  terms.  Either  it 
frustrates  not  merely  what  might  have  been  but  what  al- 
most was,  or  it  brings  to  pass  the  disaster  that  was  almost 
averted.  It  might  come  under  the  simpler  caption  of  bad 
luck,  except  that  not  all  bad  luck  is  ironic;  only  a  partic- 
ular brand  of  it.  Irony  is  the  obverse  side  of  that  happy 


THEIRONIC  1 27 

concatenation  of  events  which  we  approvingly  designate 
as  Providential.  The  favoring  and  therefore  the  rational 
and  commendable  happening  is  an  act  of  special  provi- 
dence. The  contrary  comes  from  the  malicious  mischief 
of  the  Aristophanes  of  Heaven. 

In  literature  the  ironic  temper  has  acquitted  itself  with 
distinguished  success.  Among  its  contributions  one  re- 
calls The  Dinner  of  Trimalchio,  The  Golden  Ass  (and  the 
medieval  Burnellus),  Letters  of  Obscure  Men,  Praise  of 
Folly,  Gargantua,  Don  Quixote,  The  Gull's  Hornbook, 
Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  A  Modest  Proposal,  The 
Shortest  Way  with  Dissenters,  Candide,  Jonathan  Wild, 
Murder  as  a  Fine  Art,  Castle  Rackrent,  Northanger  Abbey, 
'The^Fair^Haven.  A  glance  at  the  list  shows  the  versatile 
nature  of  irony  both  as  to  form  and  idea,  though  its  his- 
tory taken  as  a  whole  has  shown  more  predilection 
for  the  romantic  than  for  the  realistic  method.  It  is  an 
ingredient  in  all  burlesque  and  caricature,  and  is  on  the 
other  hand  least  necessary  to  an  explicit  presentation  of 
reality,  however  full  this  last  may  be  of  implicit  irony.  Its 
consistent  practice  is  to  deceive,  and  this  can  more  easily 
be  accomplished  through  fantasy  and  symbolism.  When, 
however,  it  is  accomplished  by  more  demure  and  dis- 
arming means,  the  deception  is  more  thorough  just  be- 
cause of  taking  the  reader  unaware.  One  is  on  guard 
against  any  form  of  the  symbolic,  knowing  that  some  sus- 
picious thing  is  therein  concealed.  But  who  would  think 
of  questioning  a  collection  of  letters,  an  essay  or  a  treatise? 
Yet  these  are  the  culprits  guilty  of  ruthlessly  hoodwinking 
the  trusting  literal  mind. 

Ulrich  von  Hutten's  Epistolce  were  edited  by  Maittaire, 
and  the  edition  reviewed  by  Steele  (whom  we  should  not 
expect  to  be  caught  napping),  both  taking  them  seriously. 


128        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Defoe's  pilloried  renown  is  well  known.  Butler's  work 
"in  Defense  of  the  Miraculous  Element  in  Our  Lord's 
Ministry  upon  Earth,"  was  solemnly  greeted  by  the  review- 
ers as  a  champion  of  orthodoxy,  and  sent  by  Canon 
Ainger  to  a  friend  he  wished  to  convert.  Swift  and  De 
Quincey  have  been  condemned  for  abuse  of  children  and 
encouragement  of  crime. 

Misunderstanding  of  this  sort  is  a  triumph  for  irony, 
a  test  of  success.  But  there  are  also  signs  of  a  misappre- 
hension of  the  ironic  disposition,  especially  as  related  to 
the  satiric.  Of  this  conception  two  modern  critics  afford 
examples.  In  the  Introduction  to  his  Defoe>  Masefield 
remarks, — 

"An  ironical  writer  has  always  nobility  of  soul;  a  satirist  has 
seldom  any  quality  save  greater  baseness  than  his  subject. 
An  ironical  writer  knows  the  good;  a  satirist  need  only  know 
the  evil." 

The  superb  eulogy  of  the  first  statement  may  be  dismissed 
as  a  bit  of  rhetoric,  but  the  doom  pronounced  in  its  corol- 
lary, is  based  on  a  double  confusion;  first  between  the 
ironist  and  the  humorist,  and  second  between  the  satirist 
and  the  misanthrope.  In  a  recent  discussion  the  same 
fallacy  is  promulgated  at  greater  length: 1 

"The  satirist  is  the  aggressive  lawyer,  fastening  upon  par- 
ticular people  and  particular  qualities.  But  irony  is  no  more 
personal  than  the  sun  that  sends  his  flaming  darts  into  the  world. 
The  satirist  is  a  purely  practical  man,  with  a  business  instinct, 
bent  on  the  main  chance  and  the  definite  object.  He  is  often 
brutal,  and  always  overbearing;  the  ironist,  never.  Irony  may 
wound  from  the  very  fineness  and  delicacy  of  the  attack,  but 
the  wounding  is  incidental.  The  sole  purpose  of  the  satirist 
and  the  burlesquer  is  to  wound;  and  they  test  their  success  by 
1  Randolph  Bourne:  The  Life  of  Irony.  Atlantic,  III,  357. 


THE     IRONIC  129 

the  deepness  of  the  wound.  But  irony  tests  its  own  by  the 
amount  of  generous  light  and  air  it  has  set  flowing  through  an 
idea  or  a  personality,  and  the  broad  significance  it  has  revealed 
in  neglected  things." 

The  only  pertinent  reply  to  such  eloquence  is  one  that 
may  seem  impertinent,  namely,  to  refer  the  special  pleader 
to  a  useful  principle  in  argument  greatly  favored  by  a  cer- 
tain canny  Greek  dialectician,  and  quaintly  restated  in 

the  eighteenth  century:  1 

-%, 

"If  once  it  was  expected  by  the  Public  that  Authors  should 
strictly  define  their  Subjects,  it  would  instantly  cheque  an 
Innundation  of  Scribbling.  The  desultory  Manner  of  Writing 
would  be  absolutely  exploded;  and  Accuracy  and  Precision 
would  be  necessarily  introduced  upon  every  Subject.  *  *  * 
If  Definitions  had  been  constantly  expected  from  Authors 
there  would  not  have  appeared  one  hundredth  Part  of  the 
present  Books,  and  yet  every  Subject  had  been  better  ascer- 
tained." 

Irony,  it  is  true,  is  defined  by  the  essayist  as  "  the  science 
of  comparative  experience,"  but  this  attempt  to  fit  a  phil- 
osophic giant  to  the  bed  of  his  smaller  ironic  brother  meets 
with  the  usual  Procrustian  result.  As  for  the  tribute  to 
irony,  a  far  more  impressive  one  is  paid  in  the  almost  cas- 
ual utterance  of  Lamb,  who  makes  it  the  climax  of  his 
enumeration  of  the  blessings  vouchsafed  to  mortality, — 
"and  irony  itself — do  these  things  go  out  with  life?" 

In  Victorian  fiction  the  presence  of  this  element  is  found 
very  much  as  it  is  in  life,  unobstrusive  but  easily  detect- 
able. What  Saintsbury  says  of  Jane  Austen  would  apply 
in  varying  degrees  to  her  successors:  2 

1  Corbyn  Morris,  in  An  Essay  towards  fixing  the  True  Standards  of  Wit, 
Humour,  Raillery,  Satire,  and  Ridicule. 

2  The  English  Novel,  195. 


I3O        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Precisely  to  what  extent  the  attractive  quality  of  this  art 
is  enhanced  by  the  pervading  irony  of  the  treatment  would  be 
a  very  difficult  problem  to  work  out.  It  is  scarcely  hazardous 
to  say  that  irony  is  the  very  salt  of  the  novel;  and  that  just  as 
you  put  salt  even  in  a  cake,  so  it  is  not  wise  to  neglect  it  wholly 
even  in  a  romance.  Life  itself,  as  soon  as  it  gets  beyond  mere 
vegetation,  is  notoriously  full  of  irony;  and  no  imitation  of  it 
which  dispenses  with  the  seasoning  can  be  worth  much." 

This  vital  importance  of  what  might  be  called  negative 
value  is  suggested  by  the  juvenile's  definition  of  salt  as 
"what  makes  your  potato  taste  bad  if  there  isn't  any  on 
it."  It  is  just  this  fact,  however,  that  allows  the  ironic  to 
defy  analysis.  By  itself  one  spoonful  of  salt  is  very  much 
like  another.  The  whole  secret  is  in  the  combination. 
Its  presence  or  absence  gives  one  the  immediate  feeling  of 
the  little  more  and  how  much  it  is,  the  little  less  and  how 
far  away.  But  to  segregate  it  for  scrutiny  is  to  destroy 
the  charm  of  the  savor. 

Since  such  segregation  must  nevertheless  be  attempted 
for  the  sake  of  the  information  it  may  yield,  it  seems  ad- 
visable to  keep  to  the  division  already  noted,  and  distin- 
guish between  verbal  and  philosophical  irony  as  they  ex- 
ist in  the  novel.  These  correspond  in  a  general  way  to  the 
direct  and  the  dramatic  methods  used  in  the  larger  field 
of  satire. 

Of  ironic  language  we  find  practically  none  in  Reade, 
very  little  in  Kingsley,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  and  Charlotte 
Bronte,  more  frequent  flashes  in  Lytton  and  Disraeli,  in- 
creasing still  more  in  Dickens  and  Trollope.  In  Peacock, 
Thackeray,  Eliot,  Meredith,  and  Butler,  it  is  more  perva- 
sive, even  when  less  in  quantity,  and  representative  of  a 
consistent  attitude. 

As  Mrs.  Kirkpatrick-Gibson  is  Mrs.  Gaskell's  favorite 


THE     IRONIC  131 

game,  she  constantly  exposes  her  to  ironic  self-betrayal, 
and  finally  allows  her  disciplined  husband  the  luxury  of 
an  ironic  retort, — not  in  the  lady's  presence,  of  course,  but 
by  way  of  reply  to  his  daughter  Molly's  anticipation  of  an 
orgy  of  freedom  in  her  absence.1 

"The  doctor's  eyes  twinkled,  but  the  rest  of  his  face  was 
perfectly  grave.  'I'm  not  going  to  be  corrupted.  With  toil 
and  labour  I've  reached  a  very  fair  height  of  refinement.  I 
won't  be  pulled  down  again.'" 

Kingsley  and  Bronte  are  both  incapable  of  this  quiet 
banter,  and  can  produce  from  their  earnest  souls  only  an 
awkward  and  angry  sarcasm. 

The  Misses  Sympson  and  the  Misses  Nunnely  are  asking 
whether  Shirley's  expressive  manner  of  singing  can  be 
proper.  2 

"Was  it  proper?  *  *  *  Decidedly  not:  it  was  strange,  it 
was  unusual.  What  was  strange  must  be  wrong;  what  was  un- 
usual must  be  improper.  Shirley  was  judged." 

Alton  Locke  says  of  his  own  aspiration,3 

"No  doubt  it  was  very  self-willed  and  ambitious  of  me  to 
do  that  which  rich  men's  sons  are  flogged  for  not  doing,  and  re- 
warded with  all  manner  of  prizes,  scholarships,  fellowships,  for 
doing." 

But  in  the  midst  of  his  bitterness  he  stops  to  remark, 

"I  really  do  not  mean  to  be  flippant  or  sneering.  I  have  seen 
the  evil  of  it  as  much  as  any  man,  in  myself  and  in  my  own 
class." 

The  description  in  Yeast  of  the  fight  between  the 
squire's  retainers  and  the  London  poachers,  which  results 

1  Wives  and  Daughters,  397.  2  Shirley,  I,  236.  3  Alton  Locke,  58. 


132        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

in  the  death  of  faithful  old  Harry  Verney,  concludes  with 
this  comment, — characteristic  in  that  it  breathes  the 
spirit  of  irony  but  lacks  its  complete  form.1 

"And  all  the  while  the  broad  still  moon  stared  down  on  them 
grim  and  cold,  as  if  with  a  saturnine  sneer  at  the  whole  humbug; 
and  the  silly  birds  about  whom  all  this  butchery  went  on,  slept 
quietly  over  their  heads,  every  one  with  his  head  under  his 
wing.  Oh!  if  the  pheasants  had  but  understanding,  how  they 
would  split  their  sides  with  chuckling  and  crowing  at  the  follies 
which  civilized  Christian  men  perpetrate  for  their  precious 
sake!" 

That  Lytton  should  gain  in  poise  and  subtlety  in  the 
forty-five  years  intervening  between  Pelham  and  Kenelm 
Chillingly  is  to  be  expected,  although  the  progression  is  by 
no  means  a  steady  one.  Some  of  his  most  absurd  sarcastic 
moralizing  is  found  in  My  Novel,  about  midway  in  time, — 
particularly  on  the  March  of  Enlightenment,  with  a 
smart  sketch  of  half  a  dozen  typical  Marchers;  and  on  lib- 
eral notions  generally.  And  in  the  youthful  volume  are 
some  very  good  touches,  as  this  concerning  his  country 
uncle:  2 

"He  was,  as  people  justly  observed,  rather  an  odd  man: 
built  schools  for  peasants,  forgave  poachers,  and  diminished 
his  farmers'  rents;  indeed,  on  account  of  these  and  similar 
eccentricities,  he  was  thought  a  fool  by  some,  and  a  madman  by 
others." 

This  pales  perceptibly,  however,  by  the  side  of  Peacock's 
firm  and  vivid  treatment  of  the  same  subject,  embodied  in 
Squire  Crochet: 8 

"He  could  not  become,  like  a  true-born  English  squire,  part 
and  parcel  of  the  barley-giving  earth;  he  could  not  find  in 

1  Yeast,  158.  2  Pelham,  9.  8  Crochet  Castle,  21. 


THE     IRONIC  133 

game-bagging,  poacher-shooting,  trespasser-pounding,  footpath- 
stopping,  common-enclosing,  rack-renting,  and  all  the  other 
liberal  pursuits  and  pastimes  which  make  a  country  gentleman 
an  ornament  to  the  world,  and  a  blessing  to  the  poor;  he  could 
not  find  in  these  valuable  and  amiable  occupations,  and  in  a 
corresponding  range  of  ideas,  nearly  commensurate  with  that 
of  the  great  king  Nebuchadnezzer,  when  he  was  turned  out  to 
grass;  he  could  not  find  in  this  great  variety  of  useful  action, 
and  vast  field  of  comprehensive  thought,  modes  of  filling  up 
his  time  that  accorded  with  his  Caledonian  instinct." 

This  in  turn  is  quite  equaled  by  Kenelm's  coming-of-age 
speech,  though  his  indictment  of  the  genus  squire  is 
couched  in  unironical  satire.  Not  that  the  youth  was  un- 
acquainted with  the  uses  of  irony.  At  the  age  of  nine  he 
had  had  occasion  to  send  a  letter  to  a  schoolmate,  convey- 
ing his  conviction  of  that  lad's  lack  of  intelligence.  He  had 
heard  his  father  remark  that  a  certain  neighbor  was  an  ass, 
and  that  he  was  going  to  write  and  tell  him  so.  He  made 
inquiries  into  the  matter  of  phrasing  such  information.  He 
received  the  following  reply, — by  which  he  profited  most 
effectively  in  his  own  correspondence: 1 

"But  you  can  not  learn  too  early  this  fact,  that  irony  is  to 
the  high-bred  what  billingsgate  is  to  the  vulgar;  and  when  one 
gentleman  thinks  another  gentleman  is  an  ass,  he  does  not  say 
it  point-blank — he  implies  it  in  the  politest  terms  he  can  invent." 

This  principle  is  applied  on  a  national  scale  in  the  dis- 
course of  the  intruder  among  the  Vrilya,  whose  situation 
resembles  that  of  Gulliver  eulogizing  to  the  king  of  the 
Brobdingnagians  the  Institutions  of  England,  except  that 
Lytton  does  not  blunt  his  irony  by  relapsing  into  plain 
terms,  as  Swift  does  in  the  "pernicious  race  of  little  odious 
vermin."  The  visitor  waxes  eloquent  about  America: 2 

1  Kenelm  Chillingly,  25.  *  Coming  Race,  43. 


134       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Naturally  desiring  to  represent  in  the  most  favorable  colors 
the  world  from  which  I  came,  I  touched  but  slightly,  though 
indulgently,  on  the  antiquated  and  decaying  institutions  of 
Europe,  in  order  to  expatiate  on  the  present  grandeur  and  pros- 
pective pre-eminence  of  that  glorious  American  Republic,  in 
which  Europe  enviously  sees  its  model  and  tremblingly  foresees 
its  doom.  Selecting  for  an  example  of  the  social  life  of  the 
United  States  that  city  in  which  progress  advances  at  the  fastest 
rate,  I  indulged  in  an  animated  description  of  the  moral  habits 
of  New  York.  Mortified  to  see,  by  the  faces  of  my  listeners, 
that  I  did  not  make  the  favorable  impression  I  had  anticipated, 
I  elevated  my  theme;  dwelling  on  the  excellence  of  democratic 
institutions,  their  promotion  of  tranquil  happiness  by  the 
government  of  party,  and  the  mode  in  which  they  diffused 
such  happiness  throughout  the  community  by  preferring,  for 
the  exercise  of  power  and  the  acquisition  of  honors,  the  lowest 
citizens  in  point  of  property,  education,  and  character." 

This  is  the  ironic  version  of  Matthew  Arnold's  polished 
dubiety  about  majorities  in  Numbers;  and  of  the  robustious 
satire  of  Dickens.  If  we  feel  that  Lytton  excels  the  latter 
in  pithy  conciseness  and  allusive  point,  we  have  to  remem- 
ber that  he  was  at  this  time  more  than  twice  the  age  of 
Dickens  when  Martin  Cbuzzlewit  was  written,  and  that  in 
the  intervening  quarter  century  some  improving  changes 
had  taken  place  in  their  common  object  of  satire. 

Disraeli's  irony  is  less  tangible  and  quotable.  His  fa- 
vorite method  is  to  hint  at  the  implication  in  a  bur- 
lesque comparison;  as  in  the  opening  sentence  of  The 
Young  Duke: l 

1  As  an  introduction  this  reminds  one  of  the  ironic  terseness  of  Jane  Austen: 
"It  is  a  truth  universally  acknowledged,  that  a  single  man  in  possession  of  a 
good  fortune  must  be  in  want  of  a  wife."  (Pride  and  Prejudice.}  And — "About 
thirty  years  ago,  Miss  Maria  Ward,  of  Huntingdon,  with  only  seven  thousand 
pounds,  had  the  good  luck  to  captivate  Sir  Thomas  Bertram,  of  Mansfield 
Park,  in  the  county  of  Northampton,  and  to  be  thereby  raised  to  the  rank  of 


THE     IRONIC  135 

"George  Augustus  Frederick,  Duke  of  Saint  James,  completed 
his  twenty-first  year,  an  event  which  created  almost  as  great 
a  sensation  among  the  aristocracy  of  England  as  the  Norman 
Conquest." 

Later  his  toilette  is  described  in  terms  of  a  campaign, 
concluding,1 

"He  assumes  the  look,  the  air  that  befit  the  occasion:  cordial, 
but  dignified;  sublime,  but  sweet.  He  descends  like  a  deity  from 
Olympus  to  a  banquet  of  illustrious  mortals." 

Tancred  is  introduced  by  an  epic  of  the  chefs.  Prevost 
is  discoursing  to  Leander  (who  will  take  no  engagements 
but  with  crowned  heads),  of  their  profession  and  of  Adrien, 
a  neophyte: 2 

"It  is  something  to  have  served  under  Napoleon,'  added 
Prevost,  with  the  grand  air  of  the  Imperial  kitchen.  'Had  it 
not  been  for  Waterloo,  I  should  have  had  the  cross.  But  the 
Bourbons  and  the  cooks  of  the  Empire  never  could  understand 
each  other.  *  *  * 

"'He  is  too  young.  I  took  him  to  Hellingsley,  and  he  lost  his 
head  on  the  third  day.  I  entrusted  the  souffles  to  him,  and,  but 
for  the  most  desperate  personal  exertions  all  would  have  been 
lost.  It  was  an  affair  of  the  bridge  of  Areola.  *  *  *  Ah! 
mon  Dieu!  those  are  moments!"3 

Later  the  same  functionary  is  scandalized  at  the  diners' 
neglect  of  his  colleague  (shown  in  the  failure  to  present 
him  with  tokens  of  esteem)  when  he  had  surpassed  himself 
in  a  superb  dinner: 3 

a  baronet's  lady,  with  all  the  comforts  and  consequences  of  a  handsome  house 
and  large  income."    (Mansfield  Park.} 

1  The  Young  Duke,  85.    Cf.  a  similar  account  of  Tom  Towers,  of  The  Jupiter, 
in  Trollope's  Warden. 

2  Tancred,  37. 

37* 


136       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"How  can  he  compose  when  he  is  not  appreciated?  Had  he 
been  appreciated  he  would  today  not  only  have  repeated  the 
escalopes  a  la  Bellamont,  but  perhaps  even  invented  what  might 
have  outdone  it.  *  *  *  These  things  in  themselves  are 
nothing;  but  they  prove  to  a  man  of  genius  that  he  is  understood. 
Had  Leander  been  in  the  Imperial  kitchen,  or  even  with  the 
emperor  of  Russia,  he  would  have  been  decorated!" 

It  transpires,  however,  that  the  artist's  wounded  feelings 
were  soothed  by  a  belated  acknowledgment,  accompan- 
ied by  a  tactful  hint  that  he  suffered  in  a  good  cause,  and 
that  as  an  esthetic  missionary  he  should  be  lenient  to  the 
social  delinquencies  of  the  barbarians  he  ministered  unto:  * 

"Was  it  nothing,  by  this  development  of  taste,  to  assist  in 
supporting  that  aristocratic  influence  which  he  wished  to  cherish, 
and  which  can  alone  encourage  art?" 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  this  indicates  the  range  of 
Disraeli's  ideas,  merely  the  subject  on  which  he  chiefly 
expends  his  ironic  persiflage.  A  representative  example 
of  his  more  serious  sarcasm  is  found  in  the  second  vol- 
ume of  his  Young  England  Trilogy,  the  one  most  alive 
with  social  sympathy:  2 

"Infanticide  is  practised  as  extensively  and  as  legally  in 
England  as  it  is  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges;  a  circumstance 
which  apparently  has  not  yet  engaged  the  attention  of  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts." 

In  Dickens  and  Trollope  irony  is  a  substantial  though 
not  exactly  an  integral  element;  more  substantial  in  the 
former  than  the  latter.  We  find  ironic  comment  both 
direct,  by  the  writer,  and  indirect,  through  ironic  charac- 
ters; and  the  still  more  indirect,  in  the  betraying  speech 

1  Tancred>  39.  2  Sybil,  113. 


THE     IRONIC  137 

that  relates  facts  true  in  a  different  sense  from  that  meant 
by  the  speaker,  thus  conveying  a  reverse  effect  from  the 
one  intended. 

A  text  for  the  first  kind  is  furnished  by  Noah  Claypole, 
the  sordid  bully  and  snob,  prompt  to  retaliate  on  one  still 
lower  in  the  scale  of  circumstance  than  himself: * 

"This  affords  charming  food  for  contemplation.  It  shows  us 
what  a  charming  thing  human  nature  may  be  made  to  be; 
and  how  impartially  the  same  amiable  qualities  are  developed 
in  the  finest  lord  and  the  dirtiest  charity-boy." 

Another  is  the  Chuzzlewit  Family,  introduced  by  a  long 
prologue  of  ironic  symbolism.  Specifically  there  is  the 
eulogy  of  the  head  of  the  present  branch  of  it: 2 

"Some  people  likened  him  to  a  direction  post,  which  is  always 
telling  the  way  to  a  place,  and  never  goes  there:  but  these  were 
his  enemies;  the  shadows  cast  by  his  brightness;  that  was  all." 

Later  in  his  illustrious  career,  he  is  upheld  in  his  holy 
horror  at  the  mercenary  diplomacy  of  a  landlady.  Mr. 
Pecksniff  rebukes, — 

"Oh,  Baal,  Baal!  Oh  my  friend,  Mrs.  Todgers!  To  barter 
away  that  precious  jewel,  self-esteem,  and  cringe  to  any  mortal 
creature — for  eighteen  shillings  a  week!" 

And  Dickens  echoes,3 

"Eighteen  shillings  a  week!  Just,  most  just,  they  censure, 
upright  Pecksniff!  Had  it  been  for  the  sake  of  a  ribbon,  star, 
or  garter;  sleeves  of  lawn,  a  great  man's  smile,  a  seat  in  parlia- 
ment, a  tap  upon  the  shoulder  from  a  courtly  sword;  a  place, 
a  party,  or  a  thriving  lie,  or  eighteen  thousand  pounds,  or  even 
eighteen  hundred, — but  to  worship  the  golden  calf  for  eighteen 
shillings  a  week!  Oh  pitiful,  pitiful!" 

1  Oliver  Twist,  42.  2  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  I,  17.  8  Ibid.,  I,  234. 


138        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Two  more  characteristic  instances  may  be  cited.  The 
first  is  concerning  the  failure  of  the  firm  of  Dombey  and 
Son.1 

"The  world  was  very  busy  now,  forsooth,  and  had  a  deal  to 
say.  It  was  an  innocently  credulous  and  a  much  ill-used  world. 
It  was  a  world  in  which  there  was  no  other  sort  of  bankruptcy 
whatever.  There  were  no  conspicuous  people  in  it,  trading 
far  and  wide  on  rotten  banks  of  religion,  patriotism,  virtue, 
honor.  There  was  no  amount  worth  mentioning  of  mere  paper 
in  circulation,  on  which  anybody  lived  pretty  handsomely, 
promising  to  pay  great  sums  of  goodness  with  no  effects.  There 
were  no  shortcomings  anywhere,  in  anything  but  money.  The 
world  was  very  angry  indeed;  and  the  people  especially  who, 
in  a  worse  world,  might  have  been  supposed  to  be  bankrupt 
traders  themselves  in  shows  and  pretenses,  were  observed  to  be 
mightily  indignant." 

The  second  is  anent  the  Whelp,  Tom  Gradgrind.2 

"It  was  very  remarkable  that  a  young  gentleman  who  had 
been  brought  up  under  the  continuous  system  of  unnatural 
restraint,  should  be  a  hypocrite;  but  it  was  certainly  the  case 
with  Tom.  It  was  very  strange  that  a  young  gentleman  who 
had  never  been  left  to  his  own  guidance  for  five  consecutive 
minutes,  should  be  incapable  at  last  of  governing  himself;  but 
so  it  was  with  Tom.  It  was  altogether  unaccountable  that  a 
young  gentleman  whose  imagination  had  been  strangled  in  his 
cradle,  should  be  still  inconvenienced  by  its  ghost  in  the  form 
of  grovelling  sensualities;  but  such  a  monster,  beyond  all  doubt, 
was  Tom." 

In  character  we  have  a  range  from  the  vulgar,  vigorous 
sarcasm  of  Mr.  Panks  3  to  the  languid  patrician  banter  of 

1  Dombey  and  Son,  II,  416.    Cf.  the  Musical  Banks  of  Erewhon. 

2  Hard  Times,  156. 

3  Arthur  Clennam  had  remarked  that  the  patriarchal  Mr.  Casby  is  a  fine 
old  fellow.  Mr.  Panks  snorts  a  bitter  concurrence  of  opinion: 


THE     IRONIC  139 

Sir  John  Chester,  exercised  on  the  uncomprehending  Sim 
Tappertit  and  Gabriel  Varden.  There  are  also  ironic 
touches  in  the  two  heroes,  Martin  Chuzzlewit  and  David 
Copperfield. 

The  most  delightful  pictures  of  those  who  entertain 
irony  unaware  are  Mr.  Bumble,  Mr.  Squeers,  Mr.  Turvey- 
drop,  Mrs.  Skewton,  Mrs.  Nickleby,  and  Mrs.  Pardiggle. 

Entrenched  in  wisdom,  these  philosophers  all  enunciate 
profound  truths  about  life. 

The  beadle  discovers  the  illimitable  vistas  of  human  de- 
sires, together  with  the  unreasonable  expectation  of  having 
them  gratified.  He  laments  the  ingratitude  of  the  pau- 
per who,  in  antiparochial  weather,  having  been  granted 
bread  and  cheese,  has  the  audacity  to  ask  for  a  bit  of  fuel.1 

"That's  the  way  with  these  people,  ma'am;  give  Jem  a  apron 
full  of  coals  today,  and  they'll  come  back  for  another,  the  day 
after  tomorrow,  as  brazen  as  alabaster." 

The  pedagogue  learns  that  parental  prejudice  sometimes 
extends  to  an  extravagant  pampering  of  offspring,  even 
carried  so  far  as  an  absurd  opposition  to  wholesome  dis- 
cipline. Summoned  to  London  on  some  bothering  law 
business  for  what  was  called  the  neglect  of  a  boy,  he  ex- 
plains to  the  sympathetic  Ralph  Nickleby  that  the  lad  had 
as  good  grazing  as  there  was  to  be  had.2 

"When  a  boy  gets  weak  and  ill  and  don't  relish  his  meals, 
we  give  him  a  change  of  diet — turn  him  out,  for  an  hour  or  so 
every  day,  into  a  neighbor's  turnip-field,  or  sometimes,  if  it's 

"Noble  old  boy,  an't  he?  *  *  *  generous  old  buck.  Confiding  old 
boy.  Philanthropic  old  buck.  Benevolent  old  boy!  Twenty  per  cent  I  en- 
gaged to  pay  him,  sir.  But  we  never  do  business  for  less,  at  our  shop."  Little 
Dorrit,  I,  554. 

1  Oliver  Twisty  219. 

2  Nicholas  Nickleby,  II,  26. 


I4O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

a  delicate  case,  a  turnip-field  and  a  piece  of  carrots  alternately, 
and  let  him  eat  as  many  as  he  likes.  There  an't  better  land  in 
the  county  than  this  perwerse  lad  grazed  on,  and  yet  he  goes 
and  catches  cold  and  indigestion  and  what  not,  and  then  his 
friends  brings  a  lawsuit  against  me!" 

The  Professor  of  Deportment,  not  subject  to  these 
sordid  contacts,  inhales  a  more  rarified  atmosphere,  and 
recognizes  the  value  of  a  succes  d'estime,  sufficient  to  com- 
pensate for  neglect  on  the  part  of  a  stupid  public.1 

"It  may  not  be  for  me  to  say  that  I  have  been  called,  for 
some  years  now,  Gentleman  Turveydrop;  or  that  His  Royal 
Highness,  the  Prince  Regent,  did  me  the  honour  to  inquire, 
on  my  removing  my  hat  as  he  drove  out  of  the  Pavilion  at 
Brighton  (that  fine  building),  'Who  is  he?  Who  the  devil  is 
he?  Why  don't  I  know  him?  Why  hasn't  he  thirty  thousand 
a  year?'  But  these  are  little  matters  of  anecdote — the  general 
property,  ma'am, — still  repeated,  occasionally,  among  the 
upper  classes." 

The  contributions  of  the  ladies  seem  to  be  along  psycho- 
logical rather  than  social  or  sociological  lines.  Mrs. 
Nickleby  is  plaintively  aware  of  the  thistle-ball  nature  of 
the  masculine  mind,  fixed  by  no  friendly  star,  though  the 
star  was  not  wanting.  She  discerns  on  the  part  of  her  son 
a  certain  inattentiveness  to  her  remarks.2 

"But  that  was  always  the  way  with  your  poor  dear  papa, — 
just  his  way — always  wandering,  never  able  to  fix  his  thoughts 
on  any  one  subject  for  two  minutes  together.  I  think  I  see  him 
now!  *  *  *  looking  at  me  while  I  was  talking  to  him 
about  his  affairs,  just  as  if  his  ideas  were  in  a  state  of  perfect 
conglomeration !  Anybody  who  had  come  in  upon  us  suddenly 
would  have  supposed  I  was  confusing  and  distracting  him  in- 
stead of  making  things  plainer;  upon  my  word  they  would." 

1  Bleak  House,  195.  *  Nicholas  Nickleby >  II,  85. 


THE     IRONIC  141 

Mrs.  Skewton  and  Mrs.  Pardiggle  have  solved  the  secret 
of  a  happy  life,  but  by  different  ways.  The  former  per- 
ceives it  to  spring  from  scholarship  vivified  by  enthusiasm 
for  the  fascinating  perspectives  of  history.1 

"Those  darling  bygone  times,  Mr.  Carker,  *  *  *  with 
their  delicious  fortresses,  and  their  dear  old  dungeons,  and  their 
delightful  places  of  torture,  and  their  romantic  vengeances, 
and  their  picturesque  assaults  and  sieges,  and  everything  that 
makes  life  truly  charming!  How  dreadfully  we  have  degen- 
erated. *  *  *  \ye  have  no  faith  in  the  dear  old  barons,  who 
were  the  most  delightful  creatures — or  in  the  dear  old  priests, 
who  were  the  most  warlike  of  men — or  even  in  the  days  of  that 
inestimable  Queen  Bess,  which  were  so  extremely  golden! 
Dear  creature!  She  was  all  heart!  And  that  charming  father 
of  hers!  I  hope  you  dote  on  Henry  the  Eighth!" 

The  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  lives  in  the  present,  is 
attuned  to  the  carpe  diem  idea,  and  realizes  the  joy  of  self- 
expression  and  the  exhilaration  of  labor.2 

"I  freely  admit,  I  am  a  woman  of  business.  I  love  hard 
work;  I  enjoy  hard  work.  The  excitement  does  me  good.  I 
am  so  accustomed  and  inured  to  hard  work,  that  I  don't  know 
what  fatigue  is.  *  *  *  This  gives  me  a  great  advantage 
when  I  am  making  my  rounds.  If  I  find  a  person  unwilling  to 
hear  what  I  have  to  say,  I  tell  that  person  directly,  'I  am  in- 
capable of  fatigue,  my  good  friend,  I  am  never  tired,  and  I 
mean  to  go  on  till  I  have  done/  It  answers  admirably!" 

In  contrast  to  the  various  methods  of  Dickens,  Trollope 
practically  confines  himself  to  direct  comment.  His  favor- 
ite topics  are  politics  and  society.  As  to  the  former,  radi- 
cal iconoclasm  is  described  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Turnbull.3 

1  Dombey  and  Son,  433.  2  Bleak  House,  105. 

8  Phineas  Finn,  I,  214.  In  the  story  same  Lady  Glencora  uses  the  Socratic 
method  on  Mrs.  Bonteen  to  make  her  admit  she  is  really  an  advocate  of  social 
equality. 


142       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Having  nothing  to  construct,  he  could  always  deal  with  gen- 
eralities. Being  free  from  responsibility,  he  was  not  called  upon 
either  to  study  details  or  to  master  even  great  facts.  *  *  * 
Mr.  Monk  had  once  told  Phineas  Finn  how  great  were  the 
charms  of  that  inaccuracy  which  was  permitted  to  the  Opposi- 
tion." 

The  always  useful  ironic  device  of  simply  delineating 
one's  objects  with  brushes  and  colors  of  their  own,  of  pre- 
senting them  as  they  see  themselves,  is  used  in  one  episode 
both  on  an  institution  and  an  individual.  The  Press  re- 
acts to  the  appointment  of  a  scoundrel  to  the  Cabinet.1 

"The  Jupiter,  with  withering  scorn,  had  asked  whether 
vice  of  every  kind  was  to  be  considered,  in  these  days  of  Queen 
Victoria,  as  a  passport  to  the  cabinet.  Adverse  members  of 
both  Houses  had  arrayed  themselves  in  a  pure  panoply  of  moral- 
ity, and  thundered  forth  their  sarcasms  with  the  indignant 
virtue  and  keen  discontent  of  political  Juve"nals." 

Nevertheless,  the  new  incumbent  enjoys  his  emolu- 
ments.2 

"Now,  as  he  stood  smiling  on  the  hearthrug  of  his  official 
fireplace,  it  was  quite  pleasant  to  see  the  kind,  patronizing  smile 
which  lighted  up  his  features.  He  delighted  to  stand  there, 
with  his  hands  in  his  trousers  pocket,  the  great  man  of  the  place, 
conscious  of  his  lordship,  and  feeling  himself  every  inch  a  min- 
ister." 

With  reference  to  what  was  then  a  new  policy  of  admin- 
istration, he  employs  ironic  exhortation.3 

"Let  every  place  in  which  a  man  can  hold  up  his  head  be  the 
reward  of  some  antagonistic  struggle,  of  some  grand  compet- 

1  Frandey  Parsonage,  180. 

2  Ibid.,  183.     Cf.  Heine's  remark  of  Louis  Phillipe,  that  he  "rose  in  solid 
majesty,  every  pound  a  king." 

3  The  Bertrams,  6.    There  are  pages  in  this  strain. 


THE     IRONIC  143 

itive  examination.  Let  us  get  rid  of  the  fault  of  past  ages. 
With  us,  let  the  race  be  ever  to  the  swift,  and  victory  always  to 
the  strong.  And  let  us  always  be  racing,  so  that  the  swift  and 
strong  shall  ever  be  known  among  us.  But  what,  then,  for 
those  who  are  not  swift,  not  strong?  Va  victis!  Let  them  go 
to  the  wall.  They  can  hew  wood,  probably;  or,  at  any  rate, 
draw  water." 

The  thing  in  society  which  Trollope  apparently  finds 
most  open  to  ironic  treatment  is  the  commercializing  of 
marriage.  In  one  place  this  takes  the  form  of  sage  advice.1 

"There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  privilege  of  matrimony  offers 
opportunities  to  money  loving  young  men  which  ought  not  to  be 
lightly  abused.  Too  many  young  men  marry  without  giving 
any  consideration  to  the  matter  whatever.  *  *  *  A  man 
can  be  young  but  once,  and,  except  in  cases  of  a  special  inter- 
position of  Providence,  can  marry  but  once.  The  chance, 
once  thrown  away,  may  be  said  to  be  irrecoverable.  *  *  * 
Half  that  trouble,  half  that  care,  a  tithe  of  that  circumspection 
would,  in  early  youth,  have  probably  secured  to  them  the  en- 
during comforts  of  a  wife's  wealth.  *  *  .  *  There  is  no  road 
to  wealth  so  easy  and  respectable  as  that  of  matrimony;  that 
is,  of  course,  provided  that  the  aspirant  declines  the  slow  course 
of  honest  work." 

However,  in  default  of  golden  attractions,  a  wife  may 
have  other  assets.  Griselda  Grantly  had  neither  houses 
nor  land,  neither  title  nor  position.  But  Lord  Dumbello 
had  all  these,  and  needed  only  a  lay  figure  for  lovely  clothes 
to  grace  his  establishment;  the  more  icily  regular  and  splen- 
didly null,  the  better.2 

"But  a  handsome  woman  at  the  head  of  your  table,  who 
knows  how  to  dress  and  how  to  sit,  and  how  to  get  in  and  out 
of  her  carriage — who  will  not  disgrace  her  lord  by  her  ignorance, 
1  Dr.  Thome,  207.  2  Framley  Parsonage,  477. 


144       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

or  fret  him  by  her  coquetry,  or  disparage  him  by  her  talent — how 
beautiful  a  thing  it  is!  For  my  own  part  I  think  that  Griselda 
Grantly  was  born  to  be  the  wife  of  a  great  English  peer." 

It  is  comforting  to  know  that  in  the  midst  of  these  lofty 
circles  the  daughter  of  the  archdeacon  did  not  lose  the  vir- 
tue of  humility;  for  we  read  in  a  subsequent  narrative: * 

"But,  now  and  again,  since  her  august  marriage,  she  had 
laid  her  coronated  head  upon  one  of  the  old  rectory  pillows  for 
a  night  or  two,  and  on  such  occasions  all  the  Plumsteadians  had 
been  loud  in  praise  of  her  condescension." 

The  difference  between  the  novelists  just  discussed  and 
the  remaining  half  of  the  list,  in  the  use  of  irony,  is  more 
easily  perceived  than  defined.  It  can  only  be  suggested 
by  metaphor.  Confectionery  may  be  flavored,  for  instance 
with  citron  in  lumps  or  liquid  peppermint.  It  is  evident 
that  the  former  is  more  visible  and  detachable,  but  that 
the  latter  affects  more  pervasively  the  quality  of  the  prod- 
uct. In  the  concoctions  already  mentioned,  from  Lytton  to 
Trollope,  it  is  easy  enough  to  stick  in  one's  thumb  and  pull 
out  a  plum.  All  the  plums  being  pulled  out,  the  character 
of  the  remaining  portion  would  not  be  radically  changed. 
But  peppermint  cannot  be  extracted  except  by  a  process 
of  chemical  dissolution;  and  if  it  could,  the  taste  of  the 
whole  would  be  altered.  Yet  it  is  not  patent  to  eye  or 
finger,  though  not  wanting  in  stimulus  to  other  senses. 
These  two  ingredients,  however,  are  not  mutually  exclu- 
sive. The  permeated  may  also  be  sufficiently  glomerate 
to  permit  of  some  dissection;  only  the  operation  is  less 
fully  explanatory  of  the  whole. 

For  example,  we  may  extract  from  Peacock  his  de- 
scription of  the  Abbey  of  Rubygill,  situated —  2 

1  Last  Chronicles ,  16.  2  Maid  Marian,  15. 


THE     IRONIC  145 

"*  *  *  in  a  spot  which  seemed  adapted  by  nature  to  be 
the  retreat  of  monastic  mortification,  being  on  the  banks  of  a 
fine  trout-stream,  and  in  the  midst  of  woodland  coverts,  abound- 
ing with  excellent  game." 

Or  of  the  sword  of  Matilda,  which  went —  1 

"*  *  *  nigh  to  fathom  even  that  extraordinary  depth  of 
brain  which  always  by  divine  grace  furnishes  the  interior  of  a 
head-royal." 

Or  the  reply  of  Mr.  .Cygress  to  Dr.  Folliott's  statement 
of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man:  2 

"Yes,  sir,  as  the  hangman  is  of  the  thief;  the  squire  of  the 
poacher;  the  judge  of  the  libeller;  the  lawyer  of  his  client;  the 
statesman  of  his  colleague;  the  bubble-blower  of  the  bubble- 
buyer;  the  slave-driver  of  the  negro:  as  these  are  brethren,  so 
am  I  and  the  worthies  in  question." 

But  this  would  give  little  idea  of  Peacock's  prevailing 
attitude, — a  cheerfully  sardonic  amusement  at  the  state 
of  human  affairs,  expressed  most  frequently  by  means  of 
an  ironic  juxtaposition  of  Past  and  Present. 

Less  cheerful  and  more  sardonic  is  the  smile  with  which 
Butler  greets  life  and  its  follies.  He  is  classed  with  Peacock 
as  a  romanticist  in  method,  but  is  more  akin  to  Swift  in 
temper  and  manner  than  to  any  Victorian.  The  reader's 
mind  must  be  kept  taut  in  the  constant  process  of  trans- 
lating the  assumed  pose  into  the  real  meaning.  Under 
the  grave  disapproval  of  the  Erewhonian  treatment  of  dis- 
ease or  any  misfortune,  and  crime,  each  being  discussed 
in  the  terms  we  apply  to  the  other,  lurks  the  reversed 
judgment.  Nothing  short  of  complete  presentation,  es- 
pecially of  the  chapters  on  Current  Opinions,  Some  Ere- 

1 M aid  Marian,  96.  2  Crochet  Castle,  90. 


146        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

whonian  Trials,  The  Musical  Banks,  and  The  Colleges  of 
Unreason,  could  convey  an  adequate  impression. 

A  representative  sample,  however,  is  found  in  the  retort 
of  the  judge  who  pronounces  sentence  on  the  youth 
"charged  with  having  been  swindled  out  of  a  large  prop- 
erty during  his  minority  by  his  guardian/'  The  defend- 
ant puts  up  the  plea  natural  under  the  circumstances,  and 
is  promptly  instructed  not  to  talk  nonsense: l 

"  People  have  no  right  to  be  young,  inexperienced,  greatly  in 
awe  of  their  guardians,  and  without  independent  professional 
advice.  If  by  such  indiscretions  they  outrage  the  moral  sense 
of  their  friends,  they  must  expect  to  suffer  accordingly." 

Later  a  thorough  exposition  of  this  legal  philosophy  is 
given  in  a  long  judicial  oration  preceding  the  doom  of  a 
prisoner  found  guilty  of  pulmonary  consumption.  A  few 
excerpts  show  the  trend  of  the  argument.2 

"It  is  all  very  well  for  you  to  say  that  you  came  of  unhealthy 
parents,  and  had  a  severe  accident  in  your  childhood  which 
permanently  undermined  your  constitution;  excuses  such  as 
these  are  the  ordinary  refuge  of  the  criminal;  but  they  cannot 
for  one  moment  be  listened  to  by  the  ear  of  justice. 
There  is  no  question  of  how  you  came  to  be  wicked,  but  only 
this — namely,  are  you  wicked  or  not  ?  *  *  *  It  is  intolerable 
that  an  example  of  such  terrible  enormity  should  be  allowed 
to  go  at  large  unpunished.  Your  presence  in  the  society  of 
respectable  people  would  lead  the  less  able-bodied  to  think 
more  lightly  of  all  forms  of  illness;  *  *  *  A  time  of  univer- 
sal dephysicalization  would  ensue;  medicine  vendors  of  all 
kinds  would  abound  in  our  streets  and  advertise  in  all  our 
newspapers.  *  *  *  If  you  tell  me  that  you  had  no  hand 
in  your  parentage  and  education,  *  *  *  I  answer  that 
whether  your  being  in  a  consumption  is  your  fault  or  no,  it  is 
lErewhon,  no.  2  Ibid.,  113-116. 


THE     IRONIC  147 

a  fault  in  you,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  see  that  against  such  faults 
as  this  the  commonwealth  shall  be  protected.  You  may  say 
that  it  is  your  misfortune  to  be  criminal;  I  answer  that  it  is  your 
crime  to  be  unfortunate/' 

This  is  a  fit  successor  to  the  marvelous  "Let  no  man" 
conclusion  to  the  Modest  Proposal. 

Another  unomittable  instance  is  the  account  of  a  relig- 
ious reformation.  The  visitor  hints  to  a  Musical  Bank 
manager  that  the  popular  reliance  on  that  currency  was 
rather  perfunctory,  and  that  the  other  financial  system, 
ostensibly  flouted,  was  the  real  repository  of  coin  and  con- 
fidence.1 

"He  said  that  it  had  been  more  or  less  true  till  lately,  but 
that  now  they  had  put  fresh  stained  glass  windows  into  all  the 
banks  in  the  country,  and  repaired  the  buildings,  and  enlarged 
the  organs;  the  presidents,  moreover,  had  taken  to  riding  in 
omnibuses  and  talking  nicely  to  people  in  the  streets,  and  to 
remembering  the  ages  of  their  children,  and  giving  them  things 
when  they  were  naughty,  so  that  all  would  henceforth  go 
smoothly. 

"'But  haven't  you  done  anything  to  the  money  itself?'  said 
I,  timidly. 

"It  is  not  necessary,'  he  rejoined;  'not  in  the  least  necessary, 
I  assure  you.'" 

One  citation  also  from  Butler's  novel  is  irresistible,  par- 
ticularly as  it  reminds  one  of  Trollope's  practical  admoni- 
tion to  young  men  contemplating  matrimony.  This  is  on 
the  subject  of  domestic  discipline.2 

1  Erewhon,  153.  Butler's  ability  to  deliver  the  casual  nudge  as  well  as  the 
deliberate  blow  is  shown  in  a  feature  of  the  prison  regime;  convict  labor  is  re- 
quired,— a  trade  already  learned,  if  possible,  otherwise — "if  he  be  a  gentleman 
born  and  bred  to  no  profession,  he  must  pick  oakum,  or  write  art  criticisms  for  a 
newspaper.'*  126. 

*  The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  26. 


148       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"To  parents  who  wish  to  lead  a  quiet  life  I  would  say:  Tell 
your  children  that  they  are  very  naughty — much  naughtier 
than  most  children.  Point  to  the  young  people  of  some  ac- 
quaintances as  models  of  perfection  and  impress  your  own 
children  with  a  deep  sense  of  their  own  inferiority.  You  carry 
so  many  more  guns  than  they  do  that  they  cannot  fight  you. 
This  is  called  moral  influence,  and  it  will  enable  you  to  bounce 
them  as  much  as  you  please.  *  *  *  Say  that  you  have 
their  highest  interests  at  stake  whenever  you  are  out  of  temper 
and  wish  to  make  yourself  unpleasant  by  way  of  balm  to  your 
soul.  Harp  much  upon  these  highest  interests." 

Thackeray  is  placed  in  the  group  of  dyed-in-the-wool 
ironists  mainly  because  he  does  not  belong  in  the  other. 
One  somehow  acquires  the  impression  that  ironic  sayings 
will  be  plentiful  as  blackberries;  but  when  one  actually 
goes  berrying,  he  finds  the  crop  strangely  vanished.  Lack- 
ing the  grave,  dry,  imperturbable  manner  and  the  con- 
sistently preserved  attitude,  he  cannot  avoid  the  temp- 
tation of  relapsing  into  the  literal  and  giving  self-con- 
scious explanations,  as  in  Barry  Lyndon,  and  Catherine. 
This  produces  something  of  the  effect  of  Lydgate's  ironic 
titles, — So  as  the  Crabbe  goeth  forward,  and  As  Straight  as 
a  Ranis  Horn, — followed  by  perfectly  serious  moralizing. 
Probably  nothing  would  astonish  or  distress  Thackeray 
more  than  to  have  his  humor  rated  as  the  humor  of  Lytton, 
Reade,  or  Kingsley;  nor  would  this  indeed  be  quite  fair  to 
him.  Yet  his  lack  of  real  spontaneity  classifies  him  with 
them  rather  than  with  Dickens  or  Trollope,  and  his  lack  of 
finish  and  subtlety  prevents  him  from  being  ranked  with 
Peacock,  Eliot,  Meredith  or  Butler.  His  ironic  phrasing 
has  too  often  the  flat,  shallow  sound  of  the  man  determined 
to  be  clever.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  comment  on  the 
plutocratic  Miss  Crawley: 1 

1  Vanity  Fair,  I,  115. 


THE     IRONIC 

"She  had  a  balance  at  the  banker's  which  would  have  made 
her  beloved  anywhere.  *  *  *  What  a  dignity  it  gives  an 
old  lady,  that  balance  at  the  banker's!" 

Such  also  is  this  demolishing  assault  upon  worldliness: 1 

"I,  for  my  part,  have  known  a  five  pound  note  to  interpose 
and  knock  up  a  half  century's  attachment  between  two  breth- 
ren; and  can't  but  admire,  as  I  think  what  a  fine  and  durable 
thing  Love  is  among  worldly  people." 

And  this  upon  a  shoddy  nob/esse  oblige: 2 

"I  admire  that  admiration  which  the  genteel  world  sometimes 
extends  to  the  commonalty.  There  is  no  more  agreeable  object 
in  life  than  to  see  May  Fair  folks  condescending." 

When  he  gravely,  admonishes,  it  is  as  follows: 8 

"Praise  everybody,  I  say  to  such;  never  be  squeamish,  but 
speak  out  your  compliment  both  point  blank  to  a  man's  face, 
and  behind  his  back,  when  you  know  there  is  a  reasonable 
chance  of  his  hearing  it  again." 

The  direct  satire  on  Pitt  Crawley  as  an  undergraduate 
is  given  an  ironic  fillip  by  another  sting  in  the  tail :  4 

"But  though  he  had  a  fine  flux  of  words,  and  delivered  his 
little  voice  with  great  pomposity  and  pleasure  to  himself,  and 
never  advanced  any  sentiment  or  opinion  which  was  not  per- 
fectly trite  and  stale,  and  supported  by  a  Latin  quotation; 
yet  he  failed  somehow,  in  spite  of  a  mediocrity  which  ought 
to  have  insured  any  man  a  success." 

Another  successful  bit, — this  time  the  device  of  catching 
an  unwary  character  in  an  ironic  trap, — is  the  account  of 
Penn's  linguistic  proficiency.  His  friend  Strong  compli- 
ments him  on  speaking  French  like  Chateaubriand, —  5 

1  Vanity  Fair,  1, 128.          8  Ibid.,  192.          8  Ibid,  255.  *  Ibid,  no. 

6  Pendennis,  II,  22. 


150        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

'"I've  been  accustomed  to  it  from  my  youth  upwards/  said 
Pen;  and  Strong  had  the  grace  not  to  laugh  for  five  minutes, 
when  he  exploded  into  fits  of  hilarity  which  Pen  has  never, 
perhaps,  understood  up  to  this  day." 

In  her  preface  to  the  second  edition  of  Jane  Eyre,  Char- 
lotte Bronte  said  that  Thackeray  resembled  Fielding  "as 
an  eagle  does  a  vulture;"  and  also  compared  the  former  to 
a  Hebrew  prophet.  Putting  aside  the  injustice  to  Field- 
ing (happily  atoned  for  by  the  author  of  Middlemarcby 
thereby  restoring  the  average  in  feminine  criticism)  one 
is  moved  to  reply  that  if  any  Victorian  shoulders  received 
the  mantle  of  Elijah  they  were  undoubtedly  the  firm- 
muscled  ones  of  George  Eliot.  Hers  is  the  union  of  na- 
tive, smoldering  wit  and  tremendous  moral  earnestness 
that  marked  the  ancient  Semitic  race  and  reappeared  in  the 
modern  Saxon.  The  downright  seriousness  which  consti- 
tutes her  main  mood  is  tinctured  but  lightly  with  the  ironic 
tone,  but  its  pungency  is  well  distributed.  Its  appear- 
ance is  characterized  by  brevity  and  frequency.  There 
are  no  long  passages  of  sustained  irony;  and  no  very  long 
ones  wholly  devoid  of  it.  It  usually  occurs  in  quiet,  un- 
ostentatious phrases,  as  in  the  description  of  the  Raveloe 
philosophy,  or  of  that  superior  family  whose  daughters 
bloomed  into  the  Mesdames  Deane,  Glegg,  Pullet,  and 
Tulliver. 

The  cogitative  Mr.  Glegg,  for  instance,  had  a  truly  sci- 
entific attitude  toward  the  captious  temper  that  enlivened 
his  home, —  * 

"*  *  *  it  is  certain  that  an  acquiescent  mild  wife  would 
have  left  his  meditations  comparatively  jejune  and  barren  of 
mystery." 

1  Mill  on  the  Floss,  I,  189. 


THE     IRONIC  151 

Mrs.  Waule,  on  the  other  hand,  was  an  acquiescent 
mild  soul,  and  accepted  domestic  frankness  as  in  the  order 
of  nature, —  1 

"Indeed,  she  herself  was  accustomed  to  think  that  entire 
freedom  from  the  necessity  of  behaving  agreeably  was  included 
in  the  Almighty's  intentions  about  families." 

From  this  banter  we  pass  to  a  bitter  sarcasm  that  covers 
a  burning  social  sympathy  in  the  account  of  the  Floren- 
tine banquet,  where  none  could  eat  the  tough,  expensive 
peacock,  but  all  gloried  in  the  extravagance  of  having  it 
to  play  with, —  2 

"And  it  would  have  been  rashness  to  speak  slightingly  of 
peacock's  flesh,  or  any  other  venerable  institution  at  a  time  when 
Fra  Girolamo  was  teaching  the  disturbing  doctrine  that  it  was 
not  the  duty  of  the  rich  to  be  luxurious  for  the  sake  of  the  poor." 

Irony  is  applied  to  two  young  men,  with  totally  different 
purposes;  in  one  case  it  is  directed  against  the  youth  him- 
self; in  the  other,  against  an  anticipated  criticism  of  his 
conduct. 

Fred  Vincy  belongs  to  the  class  of  which  Algernon  Blan- 
cove  is  the  most  brilliant  representative,  and  from  which 
Evan  Harrington  made  an  early  escape.  He  is  persuaded 
that  he  "wouldn't  have  been  such  a  bad  fellow  if  he  had 
been  rich."  But  his  destiny  induces  in  him  "a  streak  of 
misanthropic  bitterness."  3 

"To  be  born  the  son  of  a  Middlemarch  manufacturer,  and 
the  inevitable  heir  to  nothing  in  particular,  while  such  men  as 

1  Middlemarch,  I,  161.    This  book  is  also  pervaded  by  the  exuberant  presence 
of  the  versatile  but  cautious  Mr.  Brooke,  who  had  always  "gone  a  good  deal 
into  that  at  one  time,"  but  always  wisely  refrained  from  pushing  it  too  far, 
as  one  never  can  tell  where  such  things  will  lead. 

2  Romola,  II,  523.  3  Middlemarch,  I,  179. 


152        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Mainwaring  and  Vyan — certainly  life  was  a  poor  business, 
when  a  spirited  young  fellow,  with  a  good  appetite  for  the  best 
of  everything,  had  so  poor  an  outlook." 

Of  contrasting  caliber  is  Adam  Bede,  whose  vision  is 
turned  outward  and  even  upward,  instead  of  altogether 
inward;  and  whose  survey  causes  a  feeling  of  modesty 
rather  than  injured  conceit.1 

"Adam,  I  confess,  was  very  susceptible  to  the  influence  of 
rank,  and  quite  ready  to  give  an  extra  amount,  of  respect  to 
every  one  who  had  more  advantages  than  himself,  not  being 
a  philosopher,  or  a  proletaire  with  democratic  ideas,  but  simply 
a  stout-limbed  clever  carpenter  with  a  large  fund  of  reverence 
in  his  nature,  which  inclined  him  to  admit  all  established  claims 
unless  he  saw  very  clear  grounds  for  questioning  them." 

George  Eliot  was  held  in  high  esteem  by  George  Mere- 
dith; and  the  two  were  indeed  akin  in  outlook,  and  very 
much  so  in  the  matter  of  ironic  usage,  in  spite  of  their 
wide  difference  in  general  style.  But  the  Meredithian  so- 
lution is  at  once  more  saturated  and  more  subtle,  combined 
with  greater  uniformity  of  effect.  This,  however,  does  not 
spell  monotony,  diversity  being  furnished  by  range  of 
ideas  and  breadth  of  subject-matter.  Meredith  has  one 
ironic  mold,  but  into  it  he  pours  a  procession  of  contents 
of  great  variety.  The  tone,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say,  is  un- 
dilutedly  masculine;  so  is  Eliot's,  except  for  the  presence  of 
an  element  usually  reckoned  as  feminine,  and  mentioned, 
by  a  curious  coincidence,  in  Meredith's  approving  char- 
acterization of  a  French  writer.  In  making  out  his  own 
preferred  list  with  accompanying  reason,  he  cites  Renan, 
"  for  a  delicate  irony  scarcely  distinguishable  from  tender- 

1  Adam  Bede,  I,  245.  It  could  not  be  said  of  him  as  it  was  of  Vincy  in  the 
above  connection,  — "The  difficult  task  of  knowing  another  soul  is  not  for  young 
gentlemen  whose  consciousness  is  chiefly  made  up  of  their  own  wishes." 


THE     IRONIC  153 

ness."  l  In  this  quality  Meredith  was  by  no  means  lack- 
ing, but  his  ironic  mood  was  inclined  to  the  caustic  and 
merciless. 

One  of  his  devices  is  to  substitute  for  the  old  mock- 
heroic  a  new  mock-syllogistic,  more  in  accord  with  modern 
imagination.  The  great  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection  is 
applied  to  human  courtship,  as  exemplified  by  one  of  the 
Fittest.2 

"Science  thus — or  it  is  better  to  say,  an  acquaintance  with 
science — facilitates  the  cultivation  of  aristocracy.  Conse- 
quently a  successful  pursuit  and  a  wresting  of  her  from  a  body 
of  competitors,  tells  you  that  you  are  the  best  man.  What  is 
more,  it  tells  the  world  so. 

"Willoughby  aired  his  amiable  superlatives  in  the  eye  of 
Miss  Middleton;  he  had  a  leg." 

Under  the  seductive  opportunity  of  table  talk  Sir  Wil- 
loughby again  falls  a  victim  to  the  inductive  method.  This 
time  he  is  airing  his  opinion  of  the  French,  drawing  an 
elaborate  analogy  from  the  character  of  a  national  sample 
now  officiating  in  the  Patterne  kitchen.  The  general  va- 
lidity of  his  conclusion  is  admitted  by  his  modest  secre- 
tary: 3 

("A  few  trifling  errors  are  of  no  consequence  when  you  are 
in  the  vein  of  satire/  said  Vernon.  '  Be  satisfied  with  knowing 
a  nation  in  the  person  of  a  cook/  " 

But  Sir  Willoughby  still  has  twin  peaks  of  eminence  to 
surmount:  one  he  achieves  when  he  describes  himself  to 

1  Lettters,  II,  501.    In  another  he  speaks  of  the  fine  irony  of  French  criticism, 
which  "instructs  without  wounding  any  but  the  vanitous  person":  and  adds 
that  "England  has  little  criticism  beyond  the  expression  of  likes  and  dislikes, 
the  stout  vindication  of  an  old  conservatism  of  taste."    Ibid.,  569. 

2  The  Egoist,  43.    (The  "leg"  of  course  referring  to  Mrs.  Jenkinson's  famous 
epigram). 

3  The  Egoist,  113. 


154        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Laetitia  as  a  man  of  humor;  and  the  other  when  he  warns 
Clara  to  beware  of  marrying  an  egoist. 

Perhaps  the  two  best  understudies  in  egoism  are  Wil- 
fred Pole  and  Victor  Radnor.  Wilfred  is  satisfied  with  the 
talents  and  charm  of  his  Emilia.  And  yet  l 

"It  was  mournful  to  think  that  Circumstances  had  not  at 
the  same  time  created  the  girl  of  noble  birth,  or  with  an  instinct 
for  spiritual  elegance.  But  the  world  is  imperfect." 

Both  have  lofty  conceptions  of  loyalty  and  sacrifice. 
In  the  case  of  Wilfred,2 

"He  could  pledge  himself  to  eternity,  but  shrank  from  being 
bound  to  eleven  o'clock  on  the  morrow  morning." 

Victor  is  convinced  of  his  love  for  Nataly,3 

"And  he  tested  it  to  prove  it  by  his  readiness  to  die  for  her: 
which  is  heroically  easier  than  the  devotedly  living,  and  has  a 
weight  of  evidence  in  our  internal  Courts  for  surpassing  the 
latter  tedious  performance." 

The  occasion  of  the  splendid  housewarming  at  Lake- 
lands is  made  into  a  text  on  the  perils  of  feminism.  In  a 
crowded  hall — 4 

"Chivalry  stood.  It  is  a  breeched  abstraction,  sacrificing 
voluntarily  and  genially  to  the  Fair,  for  a  restoring  of  the  bal- 
ance between  the  sexes,  that  the  division  of  good  things  be  rather 
in  the  fair  ones'  favor  as  they  are  to  think:  with  the  warning 
to  them,  that  the  establishment  of  their  claim  for  equality 
puts  an  end  to  the  priceless  privileges  of  petticoats.  Women 
must  be  mad,  to  provoke  such  a  warning;  and  the  majority 
of  them  submissively  show  their  good  sense."  ("With  that 

1  Sandra  Belloni,  157.  3  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  415. 

2  Ibid.,  153.  *Ibid.,  195. 


THE     IRONIC  155 

innate  submissiveness,"  speaks  up  George  Eliot,  "of  the  goose, 
so  beautifully  corresponding  to  the  strength  of  the  gander.") 

Another  evidence  of  bewildering  perversity  is  equally 
apposite  to  the  present  moment  of  history.  The  Austrian 
Lieutenant  Jenna  is  discoursing  on  the  Italians  and  the 
habit  of  the  captured  of  spending  their  enforced  solitude 
in  writing  Memoirs: 1 

"My  father  said — the  stout  old  Colonel — 'Prisons  seem  to 
make  these  Italians  take  an  interest  in  themselves/  'Oh!' 
says  my  mother,  'why  can't  they  be  at  peace  with  us?J 
'That's  exactly  the  question,'  says  my  father,  'we're  always 
putting  to  them/  And  so  I  say.  Why  can't  they  let  us  smoke 
our  cigars  in  peace?" 

But  England  does  not  lag  behind  in  the  matter  of  the 
application  of  the  intellect  to  practical  questions.  The 
country  squires  are  excited  over  the  approach  of  the  open 
game  season;  moreover, —  2 

"The  entire  land  (signifying  all  but  all  of  those  who  occupy 
the  situation  of  thinkers  in  it)  may  be  said  to  have  been  exhaling 
the  same  thought  in  connection  with  September.  Our  England 
holds  possession  of  a  considerable  portion  of  the  globe,  and  it 
keeps  the  world  in  awe  to  see  her  bestowing  so  considerable  a 
portion  of  intelligence  upon  her  recreations.  To  prosecute 
them  with  her  whole  heart  is  an  ingenious  exhibition  of  her 
power." 

It  is  naturally  the  fate  of  the  active  to  suffer  from  Phil- 
istine misapprehension,  particularly  when  the  activity  is 
racial: 3 

1  Pittoria,  373. 

2  Beauchamp's  Career,  369. 

3  Sandra  Belloni,  68.  This  is  followed  by  a  fling  at  the  "  alliance  with  Destiny", 
which  reminds  us  of  our  recent  American  slogan  of  "Manifest  Destiny." 


156       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Foreigners  pertinaciously  misunderstand  us.  They  have 
the  barbarous  habit  of  judging  by  results.  Let  us  know  our- 
selves better.  It  is  melancholy  to  contemplate  the  intrigues, 
and  vile  designs,  and  vengeances  of  other  nations;  and  still 
more  so,  after  we  have  written  so  many  pages  of  intelligible 
history,  to  see  them  attributed  to  us.  Will  it  never  be  perceived 
that  we  do  not  sow  the  thing  that  happens?" 

This  rhetorical  irony,  which  we  have  found  so  widely 
distributed,  is  a  sign  of  temperament  at  the  most,  and  at 
the  least  only  of  habit, — a  mannerism  of  style.  Philosoph- 
ical irony,  a  sense  of  the  irony  of  life,  is  an  indicator  of 
character  and  the  whole  interpretation  of  experience.  The 
two  kinds  may  or  may  not  coincide.  It  happens,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  two  great  ironists  who  inclose  the  Vic- 
torian period  like  a  pair  of  chronological  brackets,  illus- 
trate them  separately.  Jane  Austen  is  habitually  ironic 
in  speech,  but  no  novel  of  hers  manifests  an  idea  of  the 
irony  of  fate.  Her  situations  are  too  simple,  too  blandly 
logical,  to  be  devised  by  a  Destiny  either  impishly  mali- 
cious or  cruelly  malignant.  But  Thomas  Hardy  takes  all 
his  reasonable  logic  and  bland  simplicity  out  in  lan- 
guage. He  seldom  introduces  the  caustic  reflection. 
There  is  little  of  the  acrid  in  the  flavor  of  his  style.  It  is 
all  poured  into  the  story.  The  conditions  he  portrays  con- 
vey their  own  poignancy,  and  tell  their  own  tale  of  gra- 
tuitous failure  and  superfluous  sacrifice. 
V  Of  this  sharp  impression  of  life  as  consisting  of  the 
nearly-achieved  or  barely-failed,  there  are  indications  here 
and  there  in  mid-century  fiction,  but  no  thoroughgoing 
exponent,  because  none  of  that  unqualified  pessimism 
which  acknowledges  irrationality  as  the  presiding  genius 
of  the  world.  It  is  natural  that  in  Disraeli,  Bronte,  Kings- 
ley,  circumstantial  irony  should  be  as  snakes  in  Iceland; 


THE     IRONIC  157 

and  that  Lytton,  Gaskell,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Reade, 
should  furnish  a  pair  of  white  crows  apiece.  It  is  inter- 
esting though  also  not  astonishing  to  find  that  out  of  about 
three  dozen  culled  examples,  Peacock  and  Butler  not 
counted  because  they  do  not  work  in  the  medium  of  nor- 
mal circumstance,  Meredith  leads  with  nearly  one-third 
the  total  amount,  Eliot  being  a  close  second,  and  Trol- 
lope  a  lagging  third.  Yet  these  three  are  decidedly  anti- 
ironic  in  general  belief;  shown  both  by  actual  testimony 
and  by  implication.  The  former  comes,  as  would  be  sup- 
posed, from  Meredith.  Writing  to  a  friend  and  alluding  to 
the  weakness  of  old  age,  he  says, —  1 

"We  who  have  loved  the  motion  of  legs  and  the  sweep  of 
the  winds,  we  come  to  this.  But  for  myself,  I  will  own  that  it  is 
the  natural  order.  There  is  no  irony  in  Nature." 

In  his  last  novel  he  gives  a  backhanded  thrust  at  the 
ironic  philosophy  in  his  favorite  equivocal  fashion: 2 

"We  are  convinced  we  have  proof  of  Providence  intervening 
when  some  terrific  event  of  the  number  at  its  disposal  accom- 
plishes the  thing  and  no  more  than  the  thing  desired." 

In  the  same  story  the  motive  and  emotion  of  the  bride- 
groom is  thus  described: 3 

"A  sour  relish  of  the  irony  in  his  present  position  sharpened 
him  to  devilish  enjoyment  of  it,  as  the  finest  form  of  loath- 
ing: *  *  *  He  had  cried  for  Romance — here  it  was!" 

But  the  author  makes  it  clear  that  this  irony  is  subjective. 
The  objective  complement  to  it  arrives  later,  and  its  real 
name  is  Nemesis. 

1  Letters,  II,  555.    To  Leslie  Stephen,  1904. 

2  An  Amazing  Marriage^  480. 

3  Ibid.,  147.    Cf.  also  citations  in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter. 


158          SATIRE    IN   THE   VICTORIAN    NOVEL 

Subjective  also  is  it  in  the  one  account  we  have  from 
George  Eliot:  1 

"But  anyone  watching  keenly  the  stealthy  convergence  of 
human  lots,  sees  a  slow  preparation  of  effects  from  one  life  on 
another,  which  tells  like  a  calculated  irony  on  the  indifference 
or  the  frozen  stare  with  which  we  look  at  our  unintroduced 
neighbor.  Destiny  stands  by  sarcastic  with  our  dramatis  per- 
sonce  folded  in  her  hand." 

That  is,  our  ignorance  makes  a  dramatic  irony  out  of  a 
situation  in  itself  a  link  in  the  logical  chain  of  cause 
and  effect. 

The  implication  that  to  the  Victorians  life  is  on  the 
whole  rational  rather  than  ironic  is  made  by  the  fact  that 
the  ironic  situations  are  incidental,  and  the  conclusions 
are  based  on  poetic  justice,  whether  happy  or  tragic,  and 
not  on  ironic  injustice.  It  may  be  worth  noting  that  these 
various  situations  seem  divisible  into  three  or  four  classes, 
and  that  such  division  serves  to  bring  some  order  out  of 
the  chaos  of  their  multiplicity. 

There  is  first  the  irony  already  mentioned  as  dramatic, 
where  ignorance  is  not  bliss.  Such  is  the  case  in  Lytton's 
Alice>  when  Maltravers  falls  in  love  with  his  own  unknown 
daughter,  an  (Edipean  tragedy  being  averted  by  timely 
information.  A  similar  relationship  with  opposite  effect 
is  that  of  Harold  Transome,  exasperating  with  warnings 
of  exposure  the  slippery  scoundrel  Jermyn,  until  he  forces 
the  incredible  exposure  of  his  own  social  position.  Even 
more  ironic  is  that  behavior  which  in  ignorant  zeal  pre- 

1  Middlemarch,  I,  142.  She  also  comments  as  follows  on  the  undeniably  just 
statement  of  Jermyn  to  Mrs.  Transome  that  Harold  should  be  told  the  secret 
of  his  birth: 

"  Perhaps  some  of  the  most  terrible  irony  of  the  human  lot  is  this  of  a  deep 
truth  coming  to  be  uttered  by  lips  that  have  no  right  to  it."  Felix  Holt,  II,  242. 


THEIRONIC  1 59 

cipitates  the  very  calamity  it  strives  to  avoid.  Thus  does 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  a  hen  taking  to  reflection  on  how  to  pre- 
vent Hodge  from  wringing  her  neck,"  when  she  adroitly 
tries  to  persuade  Wakem  not  to  buy  the  Mill,  thereby  put- 
ting the  notion  of  doing  it  into  his  head.  Lady  Glencora, 
in  Phineas  Finn,  pleading  with  Madame  Max  not  to  marry 
the  Duke  of  Omnium,  unaware  of  her  already  made  deci- 
sion not  to  do  so,  very  nearly  meets  with  the  same  kind  of 
gratuitous  failure.  Of  a  different  order  is  the  use  of  secret 
knowledge  to  extract  an  advantage  from  the  ignorant  ad- 
versary who  misunderstands  the  allusions;  as  Sandra  Bel- 
loni,  arousing  Mr.  Pole's  enthusiasm  for  her  as  a  daughter- 
in-law,  good  enough  for  any  man  indeed, — except  his 
unsuspected  self,  who  was  the  only  one  desired.  At  three 
fine  banquets  dramatic  irony  sits  as  an  unwelcome  guest: 
at  Arthur  Donnithorne's  birthday  feast,  where  the  warm 
tribute  paid  him  by  Adam  Bede  and  Mr.  Poyser  would 
have  turned  to  ashes  in  their  mouths  had  they  known  the 
truth;  at  Mr.  Vane's  dinner  for  Peg  Woffington,  at  which 
his  innocent  wife  appears  just  in  time  to  assume  all  the 
honors  to  herself;  and  at  the  Jocelyn  party,  where  the 
daughters  of  the  great  Mel  have  him  to  digest. 

Another  sort  of  irony  comes  from  the  reversed  wheel  of 
fortune.  This  is  also  dramatic,  being  in  fact  the  keynote 
of  the  mediaeval  idea  of  tragedy,  though  all  such  reversal 
is  not  ironic.  Authur  Clennam  in  the  Marshalsea  might 
be  an  instance,  albeit  less  perfect  than  William  Dorrit 
fancying  himself  there  when  he  was  really  in  the  perfectly 
appointed  Merdle  dining  room.  There  is  a  double  rever- 
sal of  expectation  that  turns  Fred  Vincy  into  a  passable 
success,  through  being  cheated  out  of  his  legacy,  while 
Dorothea  Brooke  and  Tertius  Lydgate  are  thwarted  into 
comparative  failure.  Another  subdivision  is  that  com- 


l6o       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

plete  fall  in  which  the  victim  does,  and  gladly,  the  thing 
he  has  previously  sworn  he  would  in  no  wise  ever  do;  wit- 
ness Sir  Willoughby  in  triumph  over  the  winning  of  the 
lady  with  brains,  afterward  to  learn  "  the  nature  of  that 
possession  in  the  woman  who  is  our  wife." 

Then  there  is  the  granted  desire;  as  if  mother  Fate  hear- 
ing her  children  beg  for  poisoned  candy  said,  Well,  take  it 
then,  and  see  how  you  like  it.  Lady  Mason,  in  Orley 
Farm,  Mrs.  Transome,  Sir  Richard  Feverel,  are  all  devoted 
parents  who  are  allowed  to  have  their  own  way  in  plans 
for  their  children,  and  merely  asked  to  abide  by  the  conse- 
quences. The  death  of  Raffles  comes  most  opportunely  for 
Mr.  Bulstrode,  and  seals  his  doom. 

The  irony  of  the  lost  opportunity  is  hard  to  distinguish 
from  just  retribution.  Philip  Beaufort,  killed  on  his  way 
to  a  belated  deed  of  duty  to  his  family;  Trollope's  Claver- 
ings  and  Bertrams;  Godfrey  Cass,  Lord  Fleetwood,  Ed- 
ward Blancove,  all  are  made  to  feel  the  ironic  undercur- 
rent of  that  water  the  mill  will  never  grind  with,  because 
it  has  passed. 

In  addition  to  these  exempla,  attention  might  be  called 
to  a  trio  of  ironic  titles:  Great  Expectations,  Beauchamp's 
Career,  and  One  of  Our  Conquerers. 

Though  all  the  novelists  indulge  at  times  in  the  use  of 
irony,  Meredith  alone  offers  a  definition.  In  one  place  in 
the  Essay  on  Comedy,  he  characterizes  it  as  the  honeyed 
sting  which  leaves  the  victim  in  doubt  as  to  having  been 
hurt.  In  another,  he  expands  the  idea: 

"Irony  is  the  humour  of  satire;  it  may  be  savage  as  in  Swift, 
with  a  moral  object,  or  sedate,  as  in  Gibbon,  with  a  malicious. 
The  foppish  irony  fretting  to  be  seen,  and  the  irony  which 
leers,  that  you  shall  not  mistake  its  intention,  are  failures  in 
satiric  effort  pretending  to  the  treasures  of  ambiguity." 


THE     IRONIC  l6l 

Some  there  are  who  are  not  quite  guiltless  of  these  fail- 
ures, but  Meredith  is  not  one  of  them.  He  is  unique  also, 
except  for  the  corroboration  of  George  Eliot,  in  making 
the  ironic  interpretation  of  life  in  itself  an  object  of 
satire,  in  so  far  as  it  is  brought  forward  as  an  excuse  for 
our  deficiencies,  for  then  it  betrays  a  certain  weakness  in 
our  mental  processes.  For  this  he  has  one  direct  spokes- 
man and  two  or  three  dramatic  examples.  The  former  is 
the  incisive  Redworth,  who  is  exasperated  at  this  vi- 
carious refuge  claimed  by  needy  human  nature.1 

"'Upon  my  word/  he  burst  out,  'I  should  like  to  write  a 
book  of  Fables,  showing  how  donkeys  get  into  grinding  harness, 
and  dogs  lose  their  bones,  and  fools  have  their  sconces  cracked, 
and  all  run  jabbering  of  the  irony  of  Fate,  to  escape  the  annoy- 
ance of  tracing  the  causes.  And  what  are  they?  Nine  times 
out  of  ten,  plain  want  of  patience,  or  some  debt  for  indul- 
gence, *  *  *  It's  the  seed  we  sow,  individually  or  collect- 
ively/" 

Chief  of  the  latter, — the  dramatic  examples, — is  a  youth 
who,  just  returning  from  his  father's  funeral,  with  bitter 
prospects  ahead,  encounters  a  being  more  wretched  than 
himself,  a  forsaken  young  woman  shelterless,  and  desper- 
ately ill.2 

"Evan  had  just  been  accusing  the  heavens  of  conspiring 
to  disgrace  him.  Those  patient  heavens  had  listened,  as  is 
their  wont.  They  had  viewed  and  not  been  disordered  by  his 
mental  frenzies.  It  is  certainly  hard  that  they  do  not  come 
down  to  us,  and  condescend  to  tell  us  what  they  mean,  and  be 
dumb-foundered  by  the  perspicuity  of  our  arguments — the 
argument,  for  instance,  that  they  have  not  fashioned  us  for 
the  science  of  the  shears,  and  do  yet  impel  us  to  wield  them." 

1  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  423.  2  Evan  Harrington,  117. 


l62        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

A  little  later  in  the  same  story  is  a  bit  of  "eloquent  and 
consoling  philosophy*'  on  a  happy  juxtaposition  of  the 
meat  and  the  eaters.1 

"A  thing  has  come  to  pass  which  we  feel  to  be  right!  The 
machinery  of  the  world,  then,  is  not  entirely  dislocated :  there 
is  harmony,  on  one  point,  among  the  mysterious  powers  who 
have  to  do  with  us." 

Another  deeply  meditative  young  man  is  Algernon  Blan- 
cove.  On  the  very  point  of  turning  over  a  new  leaf,  he  has 
the  misfortune  to  lose  a  wager  of  a  thousand  pounds, — 
which  he  did  not  have  in  the  first  place.2 

"A  rage  of  emotions  drowned  every  emotion  in  his  head,  and 
when  he  got  one  clear  from  the  mass,  it  took  the  form  of  a  bitter 
sneer  at  Providence,  for  cutting  off  his  last  chance  of  reforming 
his  conduct  and  becoming  good.  What  would  he  not  have 
accomplished,  that  was  brilliant,  and  beautiful,  and  soothing, 
but  for  this  dead  set  against  him!" 

With  a  gentler  touch  Clotilde  is  pictured,  on  hearing  of 
the  disaster  to  Alvin,  as  venting  the  "laugh  of  the  tragic 
comedian."  3 

"She  laughed.  The  world  is  upside  down — a  world  without 
light,  or  pointing  finger,  or  affection  for  special  favorites,  and 
therefore  bereft  of  all  mysterious  and  attractive  wisdom,  a 
crazy  world,  a  corpse  of  a  world — if  this  be  true!" 

One  more  angle  has  Meredith  from  which  to  view  this 
subject,  and  this  shows  up  the  absurdity  of  the  opposite 
type, — the  superior  philosopher  who  disdains  to  apply  the 

1  Evan  Harrington,  137. 

2  Rhoda  Fleming,  301.     Later,  however,  an  equivalent  amount,  placed  in 
his  hands  in  trust  for  another  purpose,  conveniently  paid  this  debt.    "It  was 
enough  to  make  one  in  love  with  civilization."    Ibid.,  326. 

8  The  Tragic  Comedians,  195. 


THE     IRONIC  163 

ironic  explanation  to  his  own  affairs,  but  prides  himself  on 
his  detached,  Olympian,  ironic  view  of  the  cosmos.  This 
spirit  is  incarnate  in  the  wise  youth,  Adrian  Harley.1 

"He  had  no  intimates  except  Gibbon  and  Horace,  and  the 
society  of  these  fine  aristocrats  of  literature  helped  him  to  accept 
humanity  as  it  had  been,  and  was;  a  supreme  ironic  procession, 
with  laughter  of  Gods  in  the  background.  Why  not  laughter  of 
mortals  also?" 

From  the  tranquillity  of  this  calm  eminence  he  observes 
the  mortal  excitement  produced  by  the  news  of  Richard's 
marriage.2 

"When  one  has  attained  that  felicitous  point  of  wisdom  from 
which  one  sees  all  mankind  to  be  fools,  the  diminutive  objects 
may  make  what  new  moves  they  please,  one  does  not  marvel 
at  them;  their  sedateness  is  as  comical  as  their  frolic,  and  their 
frenzies  more  comical  still." 

Whether  or  not  there  is  such  an  actuality  as  an  Ironic 
Fate,  upon  whom  mortals  may  blame  their  failures,  or 
against  whom  they  are  doomed  to  strive  in  vain,  is  as 
speculative  a  question  as  any  in  metaphysics.  The 
ironist  is  as  dogmatic  as  the  theist;'and  he  no  doubt  gets 
as  much  satisfaction  from  his  denial  of  a  rationally  ordered 
universe,  as  the  other  does  from  his  assertion  of  it.  To  be 
able  to  fling  back  a  jest  into  the  face  of  the  Sphinx  is  un- 
deniably a  poor  equivalent  for  guessing  her  riddle,  but  it 
at  least  helps  to  take  the  edge  off  her  inscrutability. 

In  his  La  Satire  en  Francey  Lenient  makes  irony  the 
opposite  of  enthusiasm,  and  emphasizes  the  fact  and  the 
necessity  of  their  perennial  alternation,  like  the  recurrence 
of  day  and  night.  It  would  indeed  be  a  fearful  world  whose 

1  Richard  Fever ely  8.  2  Ibid.,  322. 


164        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

passive,  indifferent  night  was  succeeded  by  no  bright,  clear, 
active  day.  But  it  would  also  be  a  wearisome  world  whose 
glare  never  merged  into  the  refreshing  season  of  dusky 
shadows,  quiet  half-tones,  and  twinkling  stars.  It  is  well 
that  they  are  reciprocal  and  that  "sous  ces  noms  divers 
reproduera  Feternelle  antetbese  qui  s'agife  au  fond  de  toute 


societe" 


PART  III 
OBJECTS 


CHAPTER  I 

INDIVIDUALS 

As  the  target  to  the  missile,  so  is  its  object  to  satire.  A 
target  is  in  itself  a  thing  of  sufficient  identity  to  be  amenable 
to  definition, — even  if  that  can  be  no  more  precise  than 
"something  aimed  at."  But  in  the  concrete  there  are 
targets  and  targets.  So,  while  the  satirized  may  be  re- 
duced to  an  abstract  entity,  as  deception  or  some  other 
ubiquitous  trait  of  human  nature,  there  exist  in  fact  as 
many  varieties  of  the  satirized  as  of  satirists.  Anything 
which  any  one  may  criticise,  if  it  be  subject  to  humorous 
treatment,  may  be  a  satirical  object. 

But  since  subdivisions  are  convenient,  we  make  three  for 
this  purpose,  which  seem  fairly  inclusive,  though  not  at 
all  mutually  exclusive.  The  simplest  and  narrowest  class 
is  that  of  actual  Individuals,  The  next  is  formed  by  the 
cohesion  of  individuals  into  groups,  creating  Institutions. 
The  third  is  made  by  the  artistic  conversion  of  individuals 
into  fictitious  characters,  sufficiently  artificial  to  be  de- 
signated as  Types, — more  or  less  complex,  according  to  the 
nature  of  their  creator,  but  never  entirely  simple,  if  they 
are  fashioned  of  human  stuff. 

Even  more  than  usual,  however,  is  the  caution  neces- 
sary that  the  classification  is  artificial  and  the  classes  in- 
separable. An  individual  may,  and  indeed  generally  does, 
represent  an  idea  or  an  organization  or  a  certain  temper- 
ament. Particularly  when  an  object  of  satire,  John  Doe 
is  not  viewed  as  John  Doe  but  as  an  embodiment  of  some 
principle  or  kind  of  conduct  disapproved  of  by  his  critic. 

167 


l68        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

And  conversely,  institutions  and  types,  being  abstrac- 
tions, must  be  made  concrete  to  get  them  into  workable 
shape.  "The  position  of  the  satirist,"  says  Lowell,  in 
The  Eigelow  Papers,  "is  oftentimes  one  which  he  would 
not  have  chosen,  had  the  election  been  left  to  himself.  In 
attacking  bad  principles,  he  is  obliged  to  select  some  indi- 
vidual who  has  made  himself  their  exponent,  and  in  whom 
they  are  impersonate,  to  the  end  that  what  he  says  may 
not,  through  ambiguity,  be  dissipated  tenues  in  auras." 
Lowell  was  of  course  not  unaware  that  the  satirist's  ob- 
ligation might  be  met  and  fulfilled  through  the  method  of 
dramatic  disguise,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  author  of  the 
Fable  for  Critics  had  his  leanings  toward  the  personal  type. 
Yet  he  confirms  the  pious  English  tradition  by  adding, — 

"Meanwhile  let  us  not  forget  that  the  aim  of  the  true  sat- 
irist is  not  to  be  severe  upon  persons,  but  only  upon  false- 
hood. *  *  *  Truth  is  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  sat- 
ire. *  *  *  The  danger  of  satire  is,  that  continual  use  may 
deaden  his  sensibility  to  the  force  of  language." 

The  real  secret  is  that  our  primitive  impulses  clamor  for 
the  delectable  diet  of  personalities,  and  must  be  appeased 
by  a  little  judicious  indulgence.  Under  pristine  conditions, 
before  we  learned  to  be  apologetic  for  our  instincts,  we 
could  enjoy  our  Fescinnine  gibings  without  a  qualm.  As 
we  grew  in  poise  and  culture,  we  began  to  feel  the  need  of 
a  finer  diet  for  Cerberus,  to  gratify  his  acquired  taste. 
Such  a  sop  was  found  in  the  altruistic  motive,  inexpensive 
and  immediately  satisfying. 

But,  since  motives  are  rarely  single,  there  is  frequently 
in  this  unconscious  pose  an  admixture  of  genuine  idealism, 
most  often  of  the  patriotic  sort.  La  Satire  Menippee,  for 
instance,  was  said  to  have  been  worth  as  much  to  Henry 


INDIVIDUALS  169 

of  Navarre  as  was  the  battle  of  Ivry;  and  its  real  object  was 
the  eternal  one  of  good  satire.      Says  a  historian,1 

"All  the  mean  political  rivalries  which  pretend  to  work  only 
for  the  public  good  are  exposed  there;  all  those  men  who  take  God 
as  a  shield  to  hide  their  own  personal  baseness,  pass  before  us." 

So  also  was  the  Anti-Jacobin  designed  as  an  instrument 
for  the  public  weal,  though  conceived  in  panic  and  brought 
forth  in  extravagance.  Both  these  productions,  moreover, 
illustrate  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  personal 
and  political  or  some  sort  of  partisan  satire. 2  When  Claud- 
ius was  exposed  on  his  bad  eminence  by  Seneca,  Nero,  by 
Persius,  Domitian,  by  Juvenal,  Wolsey,  by  Skelton,  Na- 
poleon and  George  the  Third,  by  Byron,  and  all  four 
Georges,  by  Thackeray,  it  was  in  every  case,  not  as  a  mere 
human  Doctor  Fell,  but  as  a  crafty  tyrant  or  an  incom- 
petent mannikin  made  absurd  by  an  incongruous  posi- 
tion of  power  and  authority;  although  at  first  the  per- 
sonal interest  predominated  over  the  political,  the  latter 
increasing  with  time. 

In  any  case,  what  has  preserved  personal  satire  in  lit- 
erature has  been  the  amber,  not  the  flies.  Such  satiric  por- 
traits as  are  saved  from  oblivion, — as  those  in  Absalom  and 
Achitophel)  Macflecknoe,  The  Dunciad,  The  Vision  oj 'Judg- 
mentLy — are  spared,  not  for  their  subjects  but  for  the  wit 
in  which  they  are  dressed,  irrespective  of  the  justice  or  the 
slander  stitched  into  the  costume. 

In  the  field  of  prose  fiction  we  find  a  comparatively 
small  amount  of  direct  personal  satire,  and  that  modicum 
attached  to  the  romantic  or  fantastic  section  rather  than 

1  Van  Laun:  History  of  French  Literature,  II,  27. 

2  Cf.   also  the  riot  of  personalities  in  Blackwood's,  Frazer's,  and  other 
periodicals  of  their  time. 


I7O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

the  realistic.  In  the  latter  the  fusion  of  fact  and  fancy 
is  too  subtle  to  result  in  overt  portraiture.  What  Dickens 
says  of  Squeers  is  true  in  some  degree  of  all  fictitious  char- 
acters. All  are  drawn  from  observation,  but  none  remain 
precisely  as  observed,  after  passing  through  the  crucible 
of  their  creator's  imagination.  Of  some  we  chance  to  know 
more  definitely  than  of  others  that  they  were  "  taken  from 
life."  Disraeli,  for  instance,  in  his  Coningsby,  made  the 
Honorable  J.  W.  Croker  into  the  politician  Rigby,  Lord 
George  Manners  into  Henry  Sidney,  and  Lord  Hertford 
into  the  Duke  of  Monmouth.  The  last  achieved  his 
real  immortality  as  the  Marquis  of  Steyne,  and  Theodore 
Hook  also  had  the  double  honor  of  being  the  original  of 
Disraeli's  Lucian  Gay  and  Thackeray's  Mr.  Waggr— Rksji- 
ard  Monckton  Milnes  became  the  Vavasour  of  Tancredy 
John  Bright,  the  Mr.  Turnbull  ofPbineas  Redux,  and  Ger- 
ald Massey  played  the  title  role  in  Felix  Holt.  We  are 
aware  too  that  their  own  families  supplied  material  to  Dic- 
kens, Bronte,  Eliot,  and  Meredith,1  but  we  could  hardly 
class  Mr.  Micawber,  Shirley  Keeldar  (or  her  friend  Caro- 
line Helstone),  Adam  Bede,  Dinah  Morris,  or  Melchisedek 
Harrington  as  examples  of  personal  satire,  even  when 
given  satirical  treatment. 

It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  the  member  of  our  group 
who  stands  preeminent  in  the  line  of  individual  satire  is  the 
one  who  also  heads  the  list  chronologically;  that  the  next 
are  the  two  Victorian  forerunners;  and  that  the  only  real  Vic- 
torian left  to  complete  this  small  tale  does  it  by  virtue  of  his 
early  work.  After  Thackeray's  burlesques,  ending  about 
1850,  the  personal  species  becomes  practically  extinct. 

Of  Peacock's  seven  stories,  the  first  three,  published 
during  the  second  decade  of  the  century,  are  full  of  thinly 

1  Butler's  etchings  in  The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  are  also  from  personal  sources, 


INDIVIDUALS  171 

veiled  contemporary  personalities.  The  next  two,  in  the 
third  decade,  have  at  least  the  thicker  veils  of  a  historical 
perspective.  In  Crochet  Castle  (1831)  the  early  symptoms 
recur,  but  in  much  lighter  form;  and  in  Peacock's  last  ap- 
pearance, thirty  years  after,  they  have  vanished,  though 
the  staging  is  current  and  local. 

The  characters  in  the  first  three  and  the  sixth  are  a  sort 
of  stock  company,  who  reappear  in  the  different  dramatis 
persona.  Shelley  has  been  identified  with  Foster  of  Head- 
long Hal!)  Scythrop  of  Nightmare  Abbey,  and  Forester  of 
Melincourt,  though  this  last  might  also  be  Lord  Monboddo, 
as  Peacock,  like  Spenser,  had  no  objection  to  the  economy 
of  duplication.  Southey  plays  the  unenviable  parts  of 
Nightshade  in  Headlong  Hat!,  Feathernest  in  Melincourt, 
and  Sackbut  in  Crochet  Castle.  In  the  last  story,  however, 
he  may  be  Mr.  Rumblesack  Shanstee,  since  Wordsworth  is 
probably  meant  in  Mr.  Wilful  Wontsee.  The  latter  is  also 
Mr.  Paperstamp  in  Melincourt.  Coleridge  is  another  of 
triple  incarnation,  appearing  as  Mystic  in  Melincourt. 
Flosky  in  Nightmare  Abbey,  and  Skionar  in  Crochet  Castle. 
In  this  last  volume  Byron  figures  as  Cypress,  and  is  prob- 
ably also  the  Honorable  Mr.  Listless  of  Nightmare  Abbey. 
Either  GifFord  or  Jeffrey  may  be  intended  in  Gall,  in 
Headlong  Hall.  In  Melincourt,  Canning  is  Mr.  Anyside 
Antijack,  and  Mai  thus,  Mr.  Fax. 

Of  all  these  the  most  purely  personal,  in  the  sense  that 
they  are  satires  on  the  men  as  individuals  and  not  as  rep- 
resentatives of  a  philosophy  or  an  organization,  are  the 
hits  at  Coleridge  and  Southey.1  The  former  is  allowed 
to  speak  for  himself: 2  \  « 

1  Freeman  observes,  "  Peacock  abused  contemporary  poets  generally,  the  \    •' 
Lake  School  particularly,  and  Southey  in  especial,  for  eighteen  years."    Thomas  \ 
Love  Peacock,  A  Critical  Study,  141. 

2  Melincourt,  106. 


172        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"I  divide  my  day/  said  Mr.  Mystic,  'on  a  new  principle:  I 
am  always  poetical  at  breakfast,  moral  at  luncheon,  metaphys- 
ical at  dinner,  and  political  at  tea.  Now  you  shall  know  my 
opinion  of  the  hopes  of  the  world.  *  *  * 

"Who  art  thou ? — MYSTERY ! — I  hail  thee !  Who  art  thou ? — 
JARGON! — I  love  thee!  Who  art  thou? — SUPERSTITION! — I 
worship  thee!  Hail,  transcendental  TRIAD !'" 

Later  while  his  companions  are  concerned  practically 
over  the  catastrophe  of  an  explosion  of  gas  in  his  room, 
he  bewails  it  as —  1 

"*  *  *  an  infallible  omen  of  evil — a  type  and  symbol 
of  an  approaching  period  of  public  light — when  the  smoke  of 
metaphysical  mystery,  and  the  vapours  of  ancient  superstition, 
which  he  had  done  all  that  in  him  lay  to  consolidate  in  the  spirit 
of  man,  would  explode  at  the  touch  of  analytical  reason,  leaving 
nothing  but  the  plain  common  sense  matter-of-fact  of  moral 
and  political  truth — a  day  that  he  earnestly  hoped  he  might 
never  live  to  see." 

Mr.  Floskey  is  thus  described: 2 

"He  had  been  in  his  youth  an  enthusiast  for  liberty,  and  had 
hailed  the  dawn  of  the  French  Revolution  as  the  promise  of  a 
day  that  was  to  banish  war  and  slavery,  and  every  form  of 
vice  and  misery,  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Because  all  this 
was  not  done,  he  deduced  that  nothing  was  done,  and  from  this 
deduction,  according  to  his  system  of  logic,  he  drew  a  conclu- 
sion that  worse  than  nothing  was  done,  *  *  *  "  etc. 

And  thus  he  describes  his  opinion  of  current  literature: 3 

"This  rage  for  novelty  is  the  bane  of  literature.  Except  my 
works  and  those  of  my  particular  friends,  nothing  is  good  that 

1  Melicoourty  108. 

*  Nightmare  Abbey,  23.    That  this  was  a  typical  experience  is  well  known. 
Cf.  Browning's  Lost  Leader. 

*  Ibid.,  49- 


INDIVIDUALS  173 

is  not  as  old  as  Jeremy  Taylor;  and,  entre  nous,  the  best  parts 
of  my  friends'  books  were  either  written  or  suggested  by  my- 
self." 

In  the  Noctes  Ambrosiana,  Coleridge  gets  a  contempo- 
rary thrust  for  his  conceit  and  dogmatism,  with  the  con- 
clusion,— 

"The  author  o'  Christabel,  and  The  Auncient  Mariner,  had 
better  just  continue  to  see  visions,  and  to  dream  dreams — for 
he's  no  fit  for  the  wakin'  world." 

The  most  direct  attack  on  Southey  is  in  the  comment  on 
Mr.  Feathernest: 1 

«*  *  *  to  wnom  the  Marquis  had  recently  given  a  place 
in  exchange  for  his  conscience.  The  poet  had,  in  consequence, 
burned  his  old  'Odes  to  Truth  and  Liberty/  and  published  a 
volume  of  Panegyrical  Addresses  'to  all  the  crowned  heads  in 
Europe/  with  the  motto,  'Whatever  is  at  court,  is  right/" 

In  Disraeli's  Ixion,  Enceladus  has  been  identified  as 
Wellington,  Hyperion  as  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Jupiter  as  George 
the  Third,  and  Apollo  as  Byron.  Byronism  indeed  is  one 
of  the  shining  marks  loved  by  the  nineteenth  century,  a 
fact  that  not  only  labels  the  British  temper,  but  illustrates 
the  irony  of  time's  revenges.  The  last  great  satirist  of 
the  old  school  himself  becomes  the  prime  object  of  satire 
for  the  new,  partly  through  mutual  lack  of  understanding, 
and  partly  because  Byron,  like  some  other  brilliant  wits, 
lacked  a  real  sense  of  humor.  Both  these  reasons  enabled 
Lytton  to  flatter  himself  that  his  Pelbam  had  "  contributed 
to  put  an  end  to  the  Satanic  Mania — to  turn  the  thoughts 
and  ambitions  of  young  gentlemen  without  neckcloths,  and 

1  Melineourt,  80.  In  his  Review  of  Southey's  Colloquies  of  Society,  Macaulay  J 
points  out  the  Laureate's  two  unique  faculties, — "of  believing  without  a  rea-y 
son,  and  of  hating  without  a  provocation."  N^^X 


174       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

young  clerks  who  were  sallow,  from  playing  the  Corsair 
and  boasting  that  they  were  villains."  1 

Nearly  a  half  century  after  Pelhamy  we  have  a  reference 
which  strikes  indirectly  the  keynote  of  satire,  made  by  a 
genius  great  enough  to  admire  judiciously  (as  he  elsewhere 
testifies)  another  genius.2 

Beauchampism,  as  one  confronting  him  calls  it,  may  be 
lid  to  stand  for  nearly  everything  which  is  the  obverse  of  By- 
>nism,  and  rarely  woos  your  sympathy,  shuns  the  statuesque 
ithetic,  or  any  kind  of  posturing." 

It  was  Lytton,  in  turn,  who  was  attacked  by  Thackeray. 
He  heads  the  list  of  Novels  by  Eminent  Hands,  and  is 
brought  up  again  in  the  Yellowplusb  Papers  a.n&JE,pistles 
to  the  Literati. 

But  here,  as  everywhere,  the  complexity  of  this  type  ob- 
trudes itself.  Most  of  the  preceding  illustrations  have  been 
concerned  with  men  as  authors,  that  is  to  say,  with  certain 
products  of  literature;  and  this  puts  them  out  of  the  per- 
sonal class.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  Trollope's  sar- 
castic allusions  to  the  novels  of  Disraeli  and  Dickens,  and 
Kingsley's  little  flings  at  Coningsby  and  Young  England 
generally. 

No  comment  on  the  whole  matter  of  personal  satire 
could  be  more  to  the  point  or  more  conclusive  than  that 
given  informally  by  Thackeray  in  a  couple  of  letters  con- 
cerning his  own  attack  on  Lytton, — which  he  calls  by  the 
right  name.  The  first  is  addressed  to  Lady  Blessington, 
and  accounts  for  his  objection  to  E.  L.  B.8 

1  Quoted  in  his  biography,  by  the  Earl  of  Lytton,  I,  347. 

The  Ettrick  Shepherd  tries  to  rally  Tickler  out  of  his  glumness  by  the  argu- 
ment,— "  Everybody  kens  ye're  a  man  of  genius,  without  your  pretending  to  be 
melancholy." 

2  Beauchamp' s  Career,  39. 

3  Both  are  quoted  in  the  Life  by  the  Earl  of  Lytton,  I,  548,  549. 


INDIVIDUALS  175 

"But  there  are  sentiments  in  his  writings  which  always  anger 
me,  big  words  which  make  me  furious,  and  a  premeditated  fine 
writing  against  which  I  can't  help  rebelling.  My  antipathy 
don't  go  any  further  than  this." 

The  other  is  written  to  Lytton  himself,  calling  his  at- 
tention to  a  paragraph  in  his  Preface  to  the  1856  edition 
of  his  (Thackeray's)  Works;  it  is  this  that  really  contains 
the  apology: 

"There  are  two  performances  especially  (among  the  critical 
and  biographical  works  of  the  erudite  Mr.  Yellowplush)  which 
I  am  very  sorry  to  see  reproduced,  and  I  ask  pardon  of  the 
author  of  The  Caxtons  for  a  lampoon  which  I  know  he  himself 
has  forgiven,  and  which  I  wish  I  could  recall.  *  *  *  I 
wonder  at  the  recklessness  of  the  young  man  who  could  fancy 
such  satire  was  harmless  jocularity,  and  never  calculate  that 
it  might  give  pain." 

This  fine  utterance,  coming  at  just  the  right  time  and 
from  the  right  person, — the  last  of  the  personal  satirists,  re- 
formed into  the  author  of  Vanity  Fair, — might  be  used  as 
an  appropriate  epitaph  for  individual  satire.  Since  the 
time  when  Lamb  observed  that  "Satire  does  not  look 
pretty  upon  a  tombstone,"  we  have  not  only  agreed  with 
him,  but  gone  enough  further  to  admit  that  it  is  no  more 
winsome  applied  to  the  living  than  to  the  dead.  And  if 
we  still  for  the  most  part  reserve  our  eulogy  until  it  can 
serve  as  elegy,  we  are  willing  to  let  the  dead  past  of  spite- 
ful, recriminating  satire  bury  its  dead. 

It  would  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  quite  fair  to  the 
past  to  ignore  its  own  repudiation  of  this  brackish  current 
that  has  discolored  the  main  satiric  stream.  For  it  was 
undoubtedly  this  element  that  Cervantes  had  in  mind 
when  he  declared, —  1 

1  Journey  to  Parnassus,  Chapter  IV.    Gibson's  translation. 


176        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"My  humble  pen  hath  never  winged  its  way 
Athwart  the  field  satiric,  that  low  plain 
Which  leads  to  foul  rewards,  and  quick  decay." 

In  the  bitterly  partisan  seventeenth  century  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  might  well  say,  "It  is  seldom  that  men  who  care 
much  for  the  truth  write  satire."  And  in  the  beginning 
of  the  next  century  we  find  the  confession, —  1 

"Our  Satire  is  nothing  but  Ribaldry  and  Billingsgate.  Scurril- 
ity passes  for  wit;  and  he  who  can  call  names  in  the  greatest 
variety  of  phrases,  is  looked  upon  to  have  the  shrewdest  pen." 

A  later  eigh teeth  century  view  is  voiced  by  Cowper: 2 

"Most  satirists  are  indeed  a  public  scourge; 
Their  mildest  physic  is  a  farrier's  purge; 
Their  acrid  temper  turns,  as  soon  as  stirr'd, 
The  milk  of  their  good  purpose  all  to  curd. 
Their  zeal  begotten,  as  their  works  rehearse, 
By  lean  despair  upon  an  empty  purse, 
The  wild  assassins  start  into  the  street, 
Prepar'd  to  poignard  whomsoe'er  they  meet." 

It  is  with  reference  to  this  conception,  induced  by  this 
type  of  satire,  that  a  modern  critic  observes,  "It  is  com- 
monly held  by  the  unreflecting  that  your  satirist  is  bitter, 
your  humorist  a  jester."  3 

But  in  the  nineteenth  century  comes  a  change  brought 
about  by  two  influences:  a  finer  discrimination,  which 
shrinks  from  passing  snap  judgments  on  things  in  the  lump; 
and  a  more  gracious  urbanity,  sometimes  springing  from 
that  humanitarianism  which  is  the  Victorian's  pride, 
sometimes  masquerading  under  its  guise,  sometimes  even 


1  Spectator,  451,  C. 

2  Charity,  II,  501  ff. 


1  Lionel  Johnson,  in  Post  Liminium. 


INDIVIDUALS  177 

in  scorn  of  it,  but  always  characterized  by  tact  and  taste, 
if  not  by  a  tender  regard  for  possibly  hurt  feelings. 

Amidst  the  abundance  of  indirect  testimony  to  this 
fact  we  have  two  direct  ones,  from  an  earlier  and  a  later 
novelist.  Lytton  declared  in  Pelbam  that  he  "did  not 
wish  to  be  an  individual  satirist."  And  George  Eliot  said 
in  one  of  her  letters, — 

"We  may  satirize  character  and  qualities  in  the  abstract 
without  injury  to  our  moral  nature,  but  persons  hardly  ever." 

One  of  her  own  critics  makes  an  observation  on  her  work 
which  shows  the  new  idea  of  satire  struggling  with  the  old, 
that  all  satire  must  be  toothed, — in  spite  of  Bishop  Hall. 
In  the  milieu  of  Eliot,  says  Mrs.  Oliphant,  "the  satirist 
need  be  no  sharper  than  the  humorist,  and  may  almost  ful- 
fil his  office  lovingly."  1 

Whether  or  not  the  satirist  has  any  more  of  an  "office" 
than  that  of  being  an  artist,  he  is  at  least  beginning  to  have 
love  enough  for  his  art,  if  not  for  humanity,  to  do  his  work 
as  graciously  as  the  nature  of  it  will  permit.  In  Mallock's 
New  Republic,  for  instance,  there  is  a  sort  of  Peacockian 
revival  of  personalities.  But,  while  the  figures  of  Carlyle, 
Arnold,  Huxley,  Jowett,  Pater,  Ruskin,  Rossetti,  and 
others,  are  recognizable  through  their  thin  disguises,  they 
are  not  drawn  with  the  caricaturistic  strokes  that  distorted 
those  of  Southey,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Shelley  and 
Byron,  a  generation  or  so  earlier.  It  is,  however,  from  a 
member  of  that  earlier  generation  that  we  get  a  vivacious 
expression  of  the  self-reflexive  irony  which  is  for  the  satirist 
literally  a  saving  sense  of  humor.  In  his  Lyric  Odes  to  the 
Royal  Academicians,  Peter  Pindar  reports  a  dialogue  with 

1  Victorian  Age  of  Eng.  Lit.,  461. 


178        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Satire,  who  urges  him  to  attack  certain  of  his  contem- 
poraries: 

"'Not  write!'  cried  Satire,  red  as  fire  with  rage: 
'This  instant  glorious  war  with  dulness  wage; 

******** 

Flay  half  the  Academic  imps  alive; 

Smoke,  smoke,  the  Drones  of  that  stupendous  Hive/" 

Later,  made  compunctious  by  the  fable  of  the  frogs  pelted 
to  death  with  stones  thrown  merely  in  sport,  he  resolves 
to  reform,  but  is  dissuaded: 

"'Poh,  poh!'  cried  Satire  with  a  smile, 
'  Where  is  the  glorious  freedom  of  our  isle, 
If  not  permitted  to  call  names?' 
Methought  the  argument  had  weight: 
'Satire/  quoth  I,  'You're  very  right;' 
So  once  more  forth  volcanic  Peter  flames." 

"Life,"  says  Hawthorne,  "is  a  mixture  of  marble  and 
mud."  In  this  particular  fragment  of  life  as  represented 
in  literature,  we  have  the  two  in  paradoxical  combination. 
Personal  satire  has  the  effect  sometimes  of  being  an  ugly 
little  gargoyle  made  of  marble,  and  sometimes,  of  a  har- 
monius  form  done  in  muddy  clay.  The  ideal  union  of  mat- 
ter and  manner, — an  Apollo  in  marble, — is  not  for  such  an 
impish  sculptor  as  satire.  Only  to  the  true  artist,  poetry, 
is  allotted  the  task  of  shaping  beauty  into  rounded  per- 
fection. 


CHAPTER  II 

INSTITUTIONS 

Since  institutions  are  satirized  by  those  who  take  an  in- 
terest in  public  affairs,  without  being  too  well  satisfied 
with  the  way  they  are  managed,  we  may  expect  to  find 
them  conspicuously  under  indictment  at  this  time.  The 
Victorians  were  notably  a  public-spirited  group,  and  left 
no  cranny  unpenetrated  by  their  critical  searchlight;  for 
it  was  the  lamp  they  used,  and  not  the  hammer.  The  two 
most  striking  features  of  nineteenth  century  public  satire 
are  its  ubiquity  and  its  moderation.  In  all  departments 
it  was  zealous  for  reform;  in  none  did  it  see  the  need  of 
sweeping  abolishment.  It  emanated  from  a  generation 
poised  waveringly  between  acquiescence  and  iconoclasm, 
but  avoiding  both  extremes.  Awake  to  the  blindness  and 
blundering  of  the  past,  it  was  still  too  rooted  in  piety  and 
tradition  to  visualize  a  future  radically  different.  Strong 
remedies,  falling  short  of  the  drastic  and  destructive, 
seemed  about  the  right  prescription.  Dudley  Sowerby  is 
Victorianism  incarnate: 1 

"*  *  *  he  had  been  educated  in  his  family  to  believe, 
that  the  laws  governing  human  institutions  are  divine — until 
History  has  altered  them.  They  are  altered,  to  present  a  fresh 
bulwark  against  the  infidel." 

The  Victorians  deplored,  for  instance,  the  domestic  dis- 
aster that  inevitably  follows  the  mercenary  marriage 
encouraged  by  Society,  but  they  no  more  questioned  the 

1  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  267. 
179 


ISO       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

marriage  ceremony  than  they  would  any  law  of  nature. 
Getting  Married  does  not  merely  happen  to  be  post- 
Victorian;  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise. 

They  were  also  intensely  partisan  both  as  to  Church  and 
State,  according  to  the  immemorial  human  habit;  but  none 
of  them,  not  even  Disraeli  or  George  Eliot,  would  refuse  an 
amen  to  the  invocation  of  Charlotte  Bronte: 1 

"Britain  would  miss  her  church,  if  that  church  fell.  God  save 
it!  God  also  reform  it!" 

Their  Constitutional  Monarchy  was  a  broken  reed,  worse 
than  useless,  yet  Anarchy  was  a  fearful  word,  second  only 
to  Atheism  in  horrific  import.  As  to  the  prevailing  system 
of  education,  it  was  derided  as  a  failure  and  set  down  as 
naught;  but  we  hear  of  no  youth  abjuring  college  because 
it  wasted  his  time  and  money. 

Beyond  these  negative  statements,  however,  the  Vic- 
torians cannot  be  described  en  masse,  for  individuality 
comes  into  play,  both  in  emphasis  of  interest  and  manner 
of  attack.  Nor  is  there  throughout  the  strictly  Victorian 
period,  any  discernible  evolution  of  ideas.  From  Peacock 
to  Kingsley  the  various  novelists  are  to  be  distinguished 
only  by  local  color  and  personality.  But  the  two  whose 
lives  actually  extend  into  the  twentieth  century  are  sep- 
arated sharply  in  this  matter  from  their  predecessors,  and 
serve  as  links  between  their  time  and  ours.  This  omits 
only  George  Eliot,  who  belongs  to  the  second  group,  al- 
though she  uses  her  modern  scientific  data  seriously  and 
not  satirically.  With  Meredith  and  Butler  she  forms  a 
trio  which  faces  resolutely  with  the  Course  of  Empire, 
while  the  others  are  more  or  less  half-heartedly  saying 
their  prayers  toward  the  Orient. 

1  Shirley,  I,  330. 


INSTITUTIONS 


As  to  the  institutions  themselves,  started  early  in  the 
human  stage  through  gregariousness  and  mutual  depend- 
ence, and  gradually  increased  until  now  it  is  no  longer  pos- 
sible for  two  or  three  to  meet  together  without  organizing 
and  equipping  themselves  with  officers  and  constitutions, 
any  sort  of  classification  must  be  as  tentative,  interpene- 
trating, and  unsatisfactory  as  are  most  topical  outlines. 
But  a  possible  listing  of  satirized  groups  or  provinces  may 
be  made  under  half  a  dozen  headings:  Society,  State, 
Church,  School,  Art,  and  Ideals. 

By  Society  is  meant  that  powerful  but  intangible  in- 
fluence that  has  a  name  but  no  local  habitation.  It  is  in 
effect  a  federation  of  homes,  organized  on  the  caste  system. 
Known  as  "fashionable,"  or  "polite,"  its  chief  concern  is 
with  the  lighter  side  of  man's  life;  with  his  recreation  if  a 
worker,  or  his  amusement  if  a  drone.  In  view  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  particularly  the  feminine  domain,  with  the  co- 
rollary that  Woman's  Place  is  in  the  Home,  She,  as  a  sat- 
irized class,  belongs  here  as  appropriately  as  anywhere. 

The  State  includes  such  ramifications  as  politics,  law, 
charities  and  corrections,  labor  and  capital,  and  warfare. 
It  is  in  this  connection  that  satire  may  be  defined,  as  by 
Myers,  as  "essentially  a  weapon  of  the  weak  against  the 
strong,  of  a  minority  against  a  majority;"  and  by  Besant 
in  the  same  terms,  the  latter  adding,  "  Satire  began  when 
man  began  to  be  oppressed."  This  statement  occurs  in 
his  French  Humourists,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  con- 
firmation implied  in  Lenient's  description  of  France  suf- 
fering under  oppression:  "Esctave,  elle  tremble  et  obeity 
mais  se  venge  par  la  satire  de  ceux  qui  luijontpeur" 

The  Church,  when  allied  with  the  State,  assumed  do- 
minion not  only  over  it  but  over  the  Home  as  well.  This 
last,  indeed,  was  raised  to  the  high  estate  of  an  Institution 


l82        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

by  the  joint  ministrations  of  the  other  two.  By  imposing 
Marriage  upon  it,  they  were  enabled  to  lead  it,  often  more 
firmly  than  gently,  between  them;  State  grasping  the 
right  hand  of  Home  to  insure  legalization,  and  Church 
the  left,  to  produce  sanctification. 

More  recently  Church  and  School  have  exchanged 
places  in  relation  to  State,  as  education  has  become  a  pub- 
lic concern,  and  religion  a  private.  Art  and  Ideals,  like 
Society,  are  not  palpably  crystallized,  but  are  useful  desig- 
nations. The  main  subject  criticised  in  Art  is  that  branch 
to  which  the  critics  themselves  belong,  Literature.  When 
Ideals  or  Ideas  are  ridiculed,  it  is  naturally  as  fallacious 
reasoning  or  erroneous  judgment.  Attacks  on  civilization 
in  general  and  the  English  species  of  it  in  particular,  may 
also  be  put  here  for  want  of  a  better  place. 

According  to  the  satirists,  Society  is  at  fault  chiefly  for 
its  worship  of  Mammon,  its  hollowness,  and  snobbish  van- 
ity. These  lead  to  artificial  relationships,  the  most  dis- 
astrous of  which  is  the  marriage  of  convenience,  which 
usurps  the  higher  dominion  of  sentiment  and  romance. 

Peacock  is  interested  not  only  in  this  matrimonial  bar- 
gaining but  in  the  accompanying  insistence  on  a  decent 
disguise.  Mr.  Sarcastic  is  pointing  out  the  astonishing 
results  to  be  secured  by  a  practice  of  absolute  frankness 
in  speech.  Among  other  instances,  he  cites  the  shock  he 
gave  Miss  Penny  love  by  declaring  to  her, —  1 

"When  my  daughter  becomes  of  marriageable  age,  I  shall 
commission  Christie  to  put  her  up  to  auction,  the  highest  bidder 
to  be  the  buyer,  *  *  * 

In  spite  of  the  lady's  utter  amazement  and  indignation, 
she  afterwards  rejects  manhood  and  love  in  favor  of  senil- 
ity and  wealth;  whereby  her  critic  concludes, — 

1  Mflincourt,  10. 


INSTITUTIONS  183 

"How  the  dignity  and  delicacy  of  such  a  person  could  have 
been  affected,  if  the  preliminary  negotiation  with  her  hobbling 
Strephon  had  been  conducted  through  the  instrumentality  of 
honest  Christie's  hammer,  I  cannot  possibly  imagine." 

This  is  evidently  not  to  be  construed  into  a  satire  against 
women,  for  Peacock  follows  the  lead  of  Defoe  in  the 
chivalrous  justice  which,  so  far  from  ridiculing  women, 
pointed  out  on  the  contrary  the  absurdity  of  the  condi- 
tions that  had  made  them  seem  absurd.  In  the  same  story 
he  describes  Sir  Henry  as —  1 

"*  *  *  one  of  those  who  maintained  the  heretical  notion 
that  women  are,  or  at  least  may  be,  rational  beings;  though, 
from  the  great  pains  usually  taken  in  what  is  called  education 
to  make  them  otherwise,  there  are  unfortunately  very  few 
examples  to  warrant  the  truth  of  the  theory." 

In  another  connection  he  observes  that  the  repression 
of  feminine  activity  shows —  2 

"*  *  *  the  usual  logic  of  tyranny,  which  first  places  its 
extinguisher  on  the  flame,  and  then  argues  that  it  cannot  burn." 

As  to  the  mercenary  marriage,  further  satire  is  contrib- 
uted by  Thackeray,  whose  plaints  over  the  matches  made 
every  day  in  Vanity  Fair  are  well  known;  by  Dickens  and 
Bronte  in  short,  glancing  shafts;  and  by  Trollope,  who 
makes  it  the  main  or  secondary  theme  of  half  a  dozen  nov- 
els. On  the  more  intricate  subj  ect  of  the  Eternal  Feminine, 
the  contributions  come  from  Lytton,  Bronte,  (not,  how- 
ever, from  Mrs.  Gaskell  or  George  Eliot),  Trollope,  and 
Meredith.  The  first  three  agree  on  the  bane  of  enforced 
idleness,  which  breeds  frivolity  and  inane  restlessness. 

1  Melincourt,  17.  *  Ibid.,  150. 


184       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Caroline  Helstone  reflects  bitterly  on  the  helplessness  of 
her  position: l 

"I  observe  that  to  such  grievances  as  society  cannot  readily 
cure,  it  usually  forbids  utterance,  on  pain  of  its  scorn:  this 
scorn  being  only  a  sort  of  tinselled  cloak  to  its  deformed  weak- 
ness. People  hate  to  be  reminded  of  ills  they  are  unwilling  or 
unable  to  remedy:  such  reminder,  in  forcing  on  them  a  sense 
of  their  own  incapacity,  or  a  more  painful  sense  of  an  obligation 
to  make  some  unpleasant  effort,  troubles  their  ease  and  shakes 
their  self-complacency.  Old  maids,  like  the  homeless  and  un- 
employed poor,  should  not  ask  for  a  place  and  an  occupation  in 
the  world:  the  demand  disturbs  the  happy  and  rich:  it  disturbs 
parents." 

She  envies  Solomon's  model  woman,  who  had  to  arise 
early  to  go  about  her  own  business;  and  Violet  Effingham 
exclaims, —  2 

'' '  I  wish  I  could  be  something,  if  it  were  only  a  stick  in  wait- 
ing, or  a  door-keeper.  It  is  so  good  to  be  something!' 

"'A  man  should  try  to  be  something,'  said  Phineas. 

"'And  a  woman  must  be  content  to  be  nothing, — unless  Mr. 
Mill  can  pull  us  through!'" 

By  the  late  seventies,  Mr.  Mill,  with  reinforcements, 
had  done  something  toward  pulling  us  through;  so  that 
Meredith  was  able  to  satirize  masculine  desire  to  stave  off 
the  threatened  feminism,  and  failure  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  equality  in  comradeship. 

In  his  ideal  for  his  first  betrothed,  Constantia  Durham, 
Sir  Willoughby  is  as  much  Man  as  Egoist: 3 

1  Shirlfy,  II,  71.     Trollope  speaks  through  Laura  Kennedy  and  Madame 
Max  Goesler,  in  Phineas  Finn,  the  former  of  whom  longs  vainly  to  go  out  and 
milk  the  cows,  while  the  latter  complains  of  having  only  vicarious  interests. 

2  Phineas  Finn,  III,  103.    After  finally  accepting  Lord  Chiltern,  she  almost 
gives  him  up  because  she  cannot  stand  his  idleness. 

8  The  Egoist,  21. 


INSTITUTIONS  185 

"He  wished  for  her  to  have  come  to  him  out  of  an  egg  shell, 
somewhat  more  astonished  at  things  than  a  chicken,  but  as 
completely  enclosed  before  he  tapped  the  shell,  and  seeing  him 
with  her  sex's  eyes  first  of  all  men." 

In  another  of  the  late  novels,  the  two  abstractions,  so- 
ciety and  woman,  are  fused  in  one  description  as, —  * 

«*  *  *  the  terrible  aggregate  social  woman,  of  man's 
creation,  hated  by  him,  dreaded,  scorned,  satirized,  and  never- 
theless, upheld,  esteemed,  applauded:  a  mark  of  civilization, 
on  to  which  our  human  society  must  hold  as  long  as  we  have 
nothing  humaner.  She  exhibits  virtue,  with  face  of  waxen 
angel,  with  paw  of  desert  beast,  and  blood  of  victims  on  it." 

This  is  discrimination;  the  general  dearth  of  which  is 
lamented  by  Lady  Dunstane: 2 

"The  English  notion  of  women  seems  to  be  that  we  are  born 
white  sheep  or  black;  circumstances  have  nothing  to  do  with 
our  colour.  They  dread  to  grant  distinctions,  and  to  judge  of 
us  discerningly  is  beyond  them." 

And  Laetitia,  after  listening  to  a  long  Patterne  dis- 
course on  feminine  traits  and  limitations,  laconically 
sums  up  the  whole  matter  in  a  compact  epigram : 3 

"'The  generic  woman   appears  to  have   an  extraordinary 

faculty  for  swallowing  the  individual/  " 

\^ 

After  this,  decidedly  flat  and  puerile  falls  the  witticism 
of  Kingsley,  spoken  by  Bracebridge  in  reply  to  Lancelot's 

1  Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta,  182. 

2  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  158. 

3  The  Egoist,  163.     Cf.  Simeon  Strunsky's  essay  on  The  Eternal  Feminine, 
in  The  Patient  Observer;  a  humorous  sermon  which  might  have  been  developed 
from  this  logical  text. 


1 86       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

impatient  question  why  women  would  "make  such  fools 
of  themselves  with  clergymen":  1 

"They  are  quite  right.  They  always  like  the  strong  men — 
the  fighters  and  the  workers.  In  Voltaire's  time  they  all  ran 
after  the  philosophers.  In  the  middle  ages,  books  tell  us,  they 
worshipped  the  knights  errant.  They  are  always  on  the  winning 
side,  the  cunning  little  beauties.  In  the  war-time,  when  the 
soldiers  had  to  play  the  world's  game,  the  ladies  all  caught 
the  red-coat  fever;  now,  in  these  talking  and  thinking  days 
(and  be  hanged  to  them  for  bores),  they  have  the  black-coat 
fever  for  the  same  reason." 

Thackeray  also  is  guilty  of  the  generalization  not  at  his 
time  discovered  to  be  fallacious: 2 

"Women  won't  see  matters-of-fact  in  a  matter-of-fact  point 
of  view,  and  justice,  unless  it  is  tinged  with  a  little  romance, 
gets  no  respect  from  them." 

The  generosity  of  "Little  Sister"  in  condoning  young 
Firmin's  unwise  passiveness  is  based  on  "  that  admirable 
injustice  which  belongs  to  all  good  women,  and  for  which 
let  us  be  daily  thankful."  At  this  point  the  undevout 
votary  burns  considerable  medieval  incense  at  the  femi- 
nine shrine, — not  caring  much  if  a  little  smoke  should 
blow  into  his  idols'  eyes: 3 

1  Yeasty  1 10.    Elsewhere  in  the  volume  the  author  expounds  his  feministic 
philosophy:  "She  tried,  as  women  will,  to  answer  him  with  arguments,  and 
failed,  as  women  will  fail."  29.    "Woman  will  have  guidance.    It  is  her  delight 
and  glory  to  be  led."  177. 

2  The  Adventures  of  Philip,  II,  42. 

3  Ibid.,  I,  237.     Thackeray's    patronizing  smugness  and  antique  attitude 
towards  women  come  out  with  a  beautiful  unconsciousness  in  a  letter  to  one 
of  them,  and  that  one  a  prime  favorite  with  him,  Mrs.  Brookfield:  "I  am  afraid 
I  don't  respect  your  sex  enough,  though.    Yes  I  do,  when  they  are  occupied 
with  loving  and  sentiment  rather  than  with  other  business  of  life."    His  fair 
correspondent  could  not  retort  that  he  would  have  found  a  congenial  soul  in 


IN  STITUTI  ON  S 

"I  know,  dear  ladies,  that  you  are  angry  at  this  statement. 
But,  even  at  the  risk  of  displeasing  you,  we  must  tell  the  truth. 
You  would  wish  to  represent  yourselves  as  equitable,  logical, 
and  strictly  just.  *  *  *  Women  equitable,  logical,  and 
strictly  just!  Mercy  upon  us!  If  they  were,  population  would 
cease,  the  world  would  be  a  howling  wilderness." 

The  apologist  errs,  however,  in  supposing  that  any  ladies, 
— real  or  fictitious,  his  own  characters  or  others', —  are 
angry  at  his  accusation  of  injustice.  Helen  Pendennis, 
Amelia  Sedley,  even  Ethel  Newcome  and  Lady  Castel- 
wood,  would  be  flattered;  Becky  Sharp  and  Beatrix  Es- 
mond would  not  care.  And  as  for  Caroline  Helstone, 
Violet  Effingham,  Diana  Warwick,  Sandra  Belloni,  they 
are  too  far  away  to  be  disturbed  by  either  smoke  or  aroma. 

For  half  our  novelists,  the  woman  question  as  such  did 
not  exist,  and  about  the  same  number  show  little  or  no  in- 
terest in  the  world  of  fashion,  though  the  two  lists  coin- 
cide only  in  part.  Lytton,  Thackeray,  Trollope,  Mere- 
dith, and  in  a  small  way,  Kingsley,  have  grudges  against 
society  in  addition  to  its  treatment  of  women  and  women's 
influence  on  it;  while  Disraeli,  Dickens,  and  Butler  have 
some  general  gibes  at  social  follies. 

From  first  to  last  in  his  near-half-century  of  writing, 
Lytton,  himself  to  the  manner  born,  loved  to  prick  the 
social  bubble.  In  youth  he  says: l 

"The  English  of  the  fashionable  world  make  business  an  en- 
joyment, and  enjoyment  a  business:  they  are  born  without  a 
smile;  they  rove  about  public  places  like  so  many  easterly  winds 
— cold,  sharp,  and  cutting;  *  *  *  while  they  have  neg- 

Meredith's  Lady  Wathin,  who  "  both  dreaded  and  detested  brains  in  women, 
believing  them  to  be  devilish;"  but  she  might  have  reminded  him  of  the  twin- 
kling chivalry  of  Christopher  North,  who  confessed,  "To  my  aged  eyes  a  neat 
ankle  is  set  off  attractively  by  a  slight  shade  of  cerulian." 
1  Pelham,  291. 


188       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

lected  all  the  graces  and  charities  of  artifice,  they  have  adopted 
all  its  falsehood  and  deceit." 

Mr.  Howard  de  Howard,  rebuking  a  drawing  room 
smart  set,  speaks  for  himself  and  his  class: l 

"Gentlemen,  I  have  sate  by  in  silence  and  heard  my  king 
derided,  and  my  God  blasphemed;  but  now  when  you  attack 
the  aristocracy,  I  can  no  longer  refrain  from  noticing  so  ob- 
viously intentional  an  insult.  You  have  become  personal" 

When  young  Chillingly  absconds  for  a  taste  of  real  life, 
he  leaves  a  letter  for  his  father  in  which  he  promises  a  safe 
return,  and  adds, —  2 

"I  will  then  take  my  place  in  polite  society,  call  upon  you 
to  pay  all  expenses,  and  fib  on  my  own  account  to  any  extent 
required  by  that  world  of  fiction  which  is  peopled  by  illusions 
and  governed  by  shams." 

In  his  first  adventure,  masquerading  as  a  yeoman,  he  is 
quizzed  by  Uncle  Bovill  on  topics  for  the  intelligent, — 
politics,  agriculture,  finance.  To  maintain  his  incognito, 
he  affects  ignorance;  and  is  astonished  at  the  triumphant 
deduction, — 3 

"Just  as  I  thought,  sir;  you  know  nothing  of  these  matters — 
you  are  a  gentleman  born  and  bred — your  clothes  can't  dis- 
guise you,  sir." 

Disraeli,  whose  career  paralleled  Lytton's  in  several 
ways,  takes  the  same  tone  toward  his  own  social  environ- 
ment, but  his  deeper  political  earnestness  led  him  to  criti- 
cise that  environment  in  the  wider  as  well  as  narrower 
social  sense.  In  his  first  real  novel  we  find  the  latter 
by  itself,  in  such  touches  as  this: 4 

1  Pelham,  73.  a  Kenelm  Chillingly,  42. 

» Ibid.,  81.  *  The  Young  Duke,  6. 


INSTITUTIONS  189 

"Always  in  the  best  set,  never  flirting  with  the  wrong  man, 
and  never  speaking  to  the  wrong  woman,  all  agreed  that  the 
Ladies  Saint  Maurice  had  fairly  won  their  coronets." 

Again  it  appears  in  this  account  of  the  hero: 1 

"The  banquet  was  over:  the  Duke  of  Saint  James  passed 
his  examination  with  unqualified  approval;  and  having  been 
stamped  at  the  Mint  of  Fashion  as  a  sovereign  of  the  brightest 
die,  he  was  flung  forth,  like  the  rest  of  his  golden  brethren,  to 
corrupt  the  society  of  which  he  was  the  brightest  ornament." 

The  house  party  of  the  Dacres,  a  family  of  taste  and 
high  standards,  is  described  negatively: 2 

"*  *  *  no  duke  who  is  a  gourmand,  no  earl  who  is  a 
jockey,  no  manoeuvering  mother,  no  flirting  daughters,  no  gamb- 
ling sons,  for  your  entertainment,  *  *  *  As  for  buffoons 
and  artists,  to  amuse  a  vacant  hour  or  sketch  a  vacant  face,  we 
must  frankly  tell  you  at  once  that  there  is  not  one." 

But  from  Popanilla  through  the  Trilogy  the  inanity 
and  pretense  of  this  social  circle  is  made  more  pointed 
by  contrast  with  those  socially  beneath  it.  Egremont's 
experience  with  the  plain  people  induces  this  serious  in- 
dictment of  his  own  set: 3 

"It  is  not  merely  that  it  is  deficient  in  warmth  and  depth 
and  breadth;  that  it  is  always  discussing  persons  instead  of 
principles,  *  *  *  it  is  not  merely  that  it  has  neither  imag- 
ination, nor  fancy,  nor  sentiment,  nor  feeling,  nor  knowledge, 
to  recommend  it,  but  *  *  *  it  is  in  short,  trivial,  uninter- 
esting, stupid,  really  vulgar." 

Thackeray  also  speaks  from  within,  and  has  to  his 
credit  his  great  roster  of  Snobs,  his  panoramic  Vanity  Fair, 

1  The  Young  Duke,  16.  2  Ibid.,  86.  »  Sybil,  153. 


I9O        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

and  his  imposing  procession  of  worldly,  heartless,  noble 
old  dames.  Trollope  prefers  country  life,  but  his  Claver- 
ings,  de  Courcys,  Luftons,  and  the  Duke  of  Omnium,  show 
that  he  has  no  desire  to  neglect  its  aristocracy.  Dickens, 
on  the  other  hand,  loved  London  and  its  struggling  poor, 
but  in  the  Merdles,  the  Veneerings,  and  the  Dorrits  redi- 
viviy  he  does  what  he  can  with  the  humors  of  the  strug- 
gling rich. 

To  Meredith  the  exasperating  thing  about  polite  society 
was  its  impoliteness, — its  delight  in  gossip  and  scandal,  its 
petty  but  venomous  persecutions,  and  the  false  courtesy 
that  takes  refuge  in  conventionality.  This  impression  ap- 
parently deepened  with  time,  for  it  is  glimpsed  only  in 
Evan  Harrington  and  Sandra  Belloni,  of  the  earlier  books, 
but  is  entirely  absent  from  none  of  the  last  half  dozen. 

Butler,  preoccupied  with  other  subjects,  takes  time  for 
only  one  good  shot  at  this,  but  that  one  is  so  good  that 
it  forms  a  fitting  climax.  He  mentions  casually  an  Ere- 
whonian  custom,  which  may  be  taken  as  symbolic  of  that 
country's  social  behavior  and  philosophy: l 

"When  any  one  dies,  the  friends  of  the  family  *  *  *  send 
little  boxes  filled  with  artificial  tears,  and  with  the  name  of  the 
sender  painted  neatly  upon  the  outside  of  the  lid.  The  tears 
vary  in  number  from  two  to  fifteen  or  sixteen,  according  to 
the  degree  of  intimacy  or  relationship;  and  people  sometimes 
find  it  a  nice  point  of  etiquette  to  know  the  exact  number 
which  they  ought  to  send.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  this 
attention  is  highly  valued,  and  its  omission  by  those  from  whom 
it  might  be  expected  is  keenly  felt.  These  tears  were  formerly 
stuck  with  adhesive  plaster  to  the  cheeks  of  the  bereaved,  and 
were  worn  in  public  for  a  few  months  after  the  death  of  a  rel- 
ative; they  were  then  banished  to  the  hat  or  bonnet,  and  are 
now  no  longer  worn." 

1  Erewhony  136. 


INSTITUTIONS 

Whether  the  last  clause  may  be  viewed  as  a  hopeful  au- 
gury for  the  future,  the  author  does  not  state. 

The  step  from  the  society  of  the  drawing  room  to  so- 
ciety at  large,  or  mankind,  is  a  refreshing  passage  from 
indoors,  where  everything  is  artificial,  even  the  tears  of 
bereavement,  to  the  fresh  air  of  common  interest.  The 
weather  may  not  always  be  serene  nor  the  atmosphere  in- 
vigorating, but  at  least  there  is  a  wide  horizon  and  a  per- 
spective of  some  scope.  It  is  evident  that  the  Victorians 
enjoyed  these  excursions  into  the  masculine  domain  of 
Government,  for  not  one  of  the  list  forbade  his  mind  to 
roam  into  its  boundaries,  and  not  one  is  wholly  silent  as 
to  the  impressions  gained  by  this  adventuring.  Here  the 
resemblance  ends.  Interest  in  public  problems  and  The 
People  varies  from  a  minimum  in  Thackeray  and  George 
Eliot  to  a  maximum  in  Peacock,  Disraeli,  and  Butler. 
There  is  also  great  diversity  in  both  breadth  and  intensity. 
Lytton,  Dickens,  Trollope,  have  several  irons  in  the  fire. 
Gaskell,  Bronte,  Reade,  Kingsley,  have  but  one  or  two, 
but  the  heat  is  none  the  less  fervent.  In  some  cases,  in- 
deed, it  is  too  fervent  to  give  off  the  sparkle  of  ridicule,  and 
thus  falls  without  our  province.  And  in  some  cases,  while 
it  is  meant  seriously  as  propaganda,  it  cannot  be  taken 
seriously  as  literature;  for  the  artist  is  not  expected  to 
speak  with  the  tongue  of  statesmen  and  economists,  and 
conversely,  as  Dowden  reminds  us,  "a  political  manifesto 
in  three  volumes  is  not  a  work  of  art."  * 

1  Concluding  his  contrast  between  Alton  Locke  and  Disraeli's  Trilogy,  in  Tran- 
scripts and  Studies,  193.  In  this  connection  another  contrast,  between  Disraeli 
and  Mrs.  Ward,  is  interesting,  because  it  turns  on  the  effect  of  humor.  "Her 
presentment  of  the  lighter  side  of  English  political  life  is  accurate,  and  in  its  way 
interesting  and  historically  valuable,  but  it  is  wholly  wanting  in  that  brilliant 
satiric  touch  which  has  made  Disraeli's  novels  live  as  literature  when  their  po- 
litical significance  has  utterly  passed  away."  Traill,  in  The  New  Fiction,  44. 


192       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Neither  of  these  strictures  applies  to  Peacock,  who 
launches  the  subject  for  us  in  a  pungent  description  of 
the  good  old  days  of  Celtic  antiquity: 1 

"Political  science  they  had  none.  *  *  *  Still  they  went 
to  work  politically  much  as  we  do.  The  powerful  took  all  they 
could  get  from  their  subjects  and  neighbors;  and  called  some- 
thing or  other  sacred  and  glorious  when  they  wanted  the  people 
to  fight  for  them.  They  repressed  disaffection  by  force,  when 
it  showed  itself  in  an  overt  act;  but  they  encouraged  freedom 
of  speech,  when  it  was,  like  Hamlet's  reading,  'words,  words, 
words/" 

In  the  same  story,  the  episode  of  the  decaying  embank- 
ment, with  its  parody  of  Lord  Canning's  Defense  of  the 
British  Constitution,  and  the  satire  on  the  game  laws,  set 
the  pace  for  the  subsequent  thrusts  at  Toryism  and  the 
country  squires,  particularly  Meredith's,  whom  he  nat- 
urally influenced.  Demagogic  bamboozlement  of  the  pub- 
lic is  punctured  again  in  the  speech  of  Mr.  Paperstamp:  2 

"We  shall  make  out  a  very  good  case;  but  you  must  not 
forget  to  call  the  present  public  distress  an  awful  dispensation; 
a  little  pious  cant  goes  a  great  way  towards  turning  the  thoughts 
of  men  from  the  dangerous  and  Jacobinical  propensity  of  look- 
ing into  moral  and  political  causes  for  moral  and  political 
effects." 

It  is  in  Melincourt  also  that  the  campaign  of  Mr.  Oran 
Hautton  in  the  Borough  of  Onevote  starts  the  satiric  ball 
rolling  into  election  camps, — later  pushed  along  by  the 
authors  of  Pelham,  The  Newcomes,  Doctor  Thome,  Felix 
Holt,  Middlemarchy  and  Beaucbamp's  Career. 

Although  Lytton  started  out  as  a  Liberal,  he  ended  as 
a  Conservative,  and  furnishes  some  counter  satire  against 

1  The  Misfortunes  of  Elphint  63.  *  Melincourt,  165. 


INSTITUTIONS  193 

democracy.  In  Night  and  Morning  he  speaks  of  men  los- 
ing their  democratic  enthusiasm;  and  in  ^he  Coming  Race 
he  gives  proof  that  his  is  entirely  lost.  The  family  of  the 
narrator  are  Americans,  "rich  and  aristocratic,  therefore 
disqualified  for  public  service;"  his  father,  defeated  by 
his  tailor  in  the  race  for  Congress,  decides  on  the  superior 
beauty  of  private  life.  The  Vrilya  have  a  very  expressive 
compound  word.  Koom  means  a  profound  hollow;  Posh  is 
a  term  of  utter  contempt;  "  Koom-Posh  is  their  name  for 
the  government  of  the  many,  or  the  ascendency  of  the 
most  ignorant  and  hollow."  l  This  contempt,  distributed 
impartially  over  dishonest  demagogue  and  gullible  pub- 
lic, is  nothing  new.  Smollett,  for  instance,  in  his  Adven- 
tures of  an  Atoni)  appreciates  the  art  of  oratory: 

"Our  orator  was  well  acquainted  with  all  the  legerdemain  of 
his  own  language,  as  well  as  with  the  nature  of  the  beast  he  had 
to  rule.  He  knew  when  to  distract  its  weak  brain  with  a  tumult 
of  incongruous  and  contradictory  ideas:  he  knew  when  to  over- 
whelm its  feeble  faculty  of  thinking,  by  pouring  in  a  torrent  of 
words  without  any  ideas  annexed." 

The  same  Adventurer  notes  that  the  names  of  the  two 
political  parties  of  Japan  signify  respectively  More  Fool 
than  Knave,  and  More  Knave  than  Fool.  It  is,  of  course 
this  aspect  of  democracy  that  leads  Lowell  to  picture  it  as 
"Helpless  as  spilled  beans  on  a  dresser." 

Statemanship  was  Disraeli's  whole  existence,  and  his 
art  a  handmaiden  to  politics.  More  than  any  other  nine- 
teenth century  novelist  he  complemented  destructive 
criticism  by  a  definite  constructive  policy.  To  a  contem- 
porary critic,  a  reforming  Tory  was  a  white  blackbird; 
but  our  own  generation,  having  witnessed  the  phenomenon 

1  The  Coming  Race,  81. 


194       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

of  Progressive  Republicanism,  has  less  difficulty  in  under- 
standing the  paradox.  It  was  not  indifference  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  masses  that  induced  Disraeli's  belief  in  the  rule 
of  a  selected  class,  but  a  distrust  of  popular  ability  and 
judgment,  and  a  conviction  (acknowledged  in  our  own 
time  as  a  truth  and  the  real  salvation  of  democracy)  that 
efficiency  can  come  only  from  expert  knowledge  and  train- 
ing. From  such  a  viewpoint  satire  would  naturally  be 
directed  not  against  the  people  but  against  its  incapable 
and  dishonest  leadership.  Peacock's  scorn  of  this  ex- 
ploitation of  popular  ignorance  and  helplessness  is  taken 
up  by  both  his  nearest  successors,  expressed,  as  it  happens, 
in  a  pair  of  portraits  of  the  ward-politician  type. 

Pelham  repudiates  Vincent's  proposed  new  party  be- 
cause of  its  bad  personnel,  men —  1 

"*  *  *  who  talk  much,  who  perform  nothing — who  join 
ignorance  of  every  principle  of  legislation  to  indifference  for 
every  benefit  to  the  people: — who  are  full  of  'wise  saws',  but 
empty  of  'modern  instances' — who  level  upwards,  and  tram- 
ple downwards — and  would  only  value  the  ability  you  are 
pleased  to  impute  to  me,  in  the  exact  proportion  that  a  sports- 
man values  the  ferret,  that  burrows  for  his  pleasure,  and  de- 
stroys for  his  interest." 

Montacute  draws  a  more  concrete  and  ironic  picture:2 

"Find  a  man  who,  totally  destitute  of  genius,  possesses 
nevertheless  considerable  talent;  who  has  official  aptitude,  a 
volubility  of  routine  rhetoric,  great  perseverance,  a  love  of  af- 

1  Pflham,  210. 

2  Tancred,  73.    Cf.  the  king's  speech  to  Popanilla;  also  Gerard's  observa- 
tion,— "fl  have  no  doubt  you  will  get  through  the  business  very  well,  Mr. 
Hoaxem,  particularly  if  you  be  "frank  and  explicit";  that  is  the  right  line  to 
take  when  you  wish  to  conceal  your  own  mind  and  to  confuse  the  minds  of 
others.'"    Sybil,  403. 


INSTITUTIONS  195 

fairs,  who,  embarrassed  neither  by  the  principles  of  the  phi- 
losopher nor  by  the  prejudices  of  the  bigot,  can  assume,  with  a 
cautious  facility,  the  prevalent  tone,  and  disembarrass  himself 
of  it,  with  a  dexterous  ambiguity,  the  moment  it  ceases  to  be 
predominant:  recommending  himself  to  the  innovator  by  his 
approbation  of  change  'in  the  abstract/  and  to  the  conserva- 
tive by  his  prudential  and  practical  respect  for  that  which  is 
established;  such  a  man,  though  he  be  one  of  an  essentially 
small  mind,  though  his  intellectual  qualities  be  less  than  moder- 
ate, with  feeble  powers  of  thought,  no  imagination,  contracted 
sympathies,  and  a  most  loose  public  morality;  such  a  man  is  the 
individual  whom  kings  and  parliaments  would  select  to  govern 
the  State  or  rule  the  Church." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  people  would 
choose  any  better  than  kings  and  parliaments;  on  the  con- 
trary,—  l 

"The  Thirty  at  Athens  were  at  least  tyrants.  They  were 
marked  men.  But  the  obscure  majority,  who,  under  our 
present  constitution,  are  destined  to  govern  England,  are 
as  secret  as  a  Venetian  conclave.  Yet  on  their  dark  voices 
all  depends." 

The  trend  of  the  succeeding  novelists  is  toward  a  modi- 
fied liberalism,  but  Meredith  is  the  only  one  to  satirize 
the  reactionary  attitude  as  such.  The  others  throw  the 
emphasis  elsewhere.  Besides,  even  such  humanitarians  as 
Dickens,  Gaskell,  Reade,  and  Kingsley,  are  dubious  as  to 
the  remedial  power  of  popular  government,  and  seem  in- 
clined toward  Carlyle's  view  of  Chartism.  What  Ches- 
terton says  of  one  of  them  would  not  be  untrue  applied  to 
the  rest: 2 

1  SyW,  43- 

2  In  his  Dickens,  81.    Dickens  himself  admits  in  a  letter  to  Macready  (1855) 
that  he  has  "no  present  political  faith  or  hope — not  a  grain." 


196       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"All  his  grumblings  through  this  book  of  American  Notes, 
all  his  shrieking  satire  in  Martin  Chuzzlezvit,  are  expressions  of 
a  grave  and  reasonable  fear  he  had  touching  the  future  of  democ- 
racy." 

But  the  humanitarianism  itself  is  sounded  in  a  harmo- 
nious chord,  whose  overtone  is  a  ridicule,  more  grim  than 
gay,  of  the  delinquents; — those  who  lack  the  spirit  of  hu- 
manity, yet  are  the  very  ones,  on  the  principle  of  noblesse 
oblige,  in  whom  it  should  well  up  most  abundantly.  If 
they  fail  through  that  ignorance  and  mental  limitation 
from  which  not  even  the  aristocracy  are  always  exempt, 
the  blow  is  tempered  accordingly;  but  it  falls  more 
heavily  when  the  roots  of  the  evil  are  the  black  ones  of 
selfishness  and  perversity. 

Lady  Lufton,  for  instance,  is  a  kind  soul,  who  would 
have  made  an  excellent  Providence,  though  scarcely  ad- 
equate to  cope  with  the  mismanagement  of  the  Provi- 
dence already  installed  over  human  affairs: 1 

"She  liked  cheerful,  quiet,  well-to-do  people,  who  loved  their 
Church,  their  country,  and  their  Queen,  and  who  were  not  too 
anxious  to  make  a  noise  in  the  world.  She  desired  that  all  the 
farmers  round  her  should  be  able  to  pay  their  rents  without 
trouble,  that  all  the  old  women  should  have  warm  flannel  pet- 
ticoats, that  the  workingmen  should  be  saved  from  rheumatism 
by  healthy  food  and  dry  houses,  that  they  should  all  be  obe- 
dient to  their  pastors  and  masters — temporal  as  well  as  spiritual. 
That  was  her  idea  of  loving  her  country.  She  desired  also  that 
the  copses  should  be  full  of  pheasants,  the  stubble-field  of  par- 
tridges, and  the  gorse  covers  of  foxes;  in  that  way,  also,  she 
loved  her  country." 

These  are  as  amiable  sentiments  for  a  lady  as  Victor 
Radnor's  for  a  gentleman.  He  is  introduced  as  regretting 

1  Framley  Parsonage,  14. 


INSTITUTIONS  197 

his  fall  on  London  Bridge  chiefly  because  it  led  to  an  un- 
pleasant altercation  with  a  member  of  the  mob.1 

«*  *  *  i^  found  that  enormous  beast  comprehensible 
only  when  it  applauded  him;  and  besides,  he  wished  it  warmly 
well;  all  that  was  good  for  it;  plentiful  dinners,  country  excur- 
sions, stout  menagerie  bars,  music,  a  dance,  and  to  bed;  he  was 
for  patting,  stroking,  petting  the  mob,  for  tossing  it  sops,  never 
for  irritating  it  to  show  an  eye-tooth,  much  less  for  causing  it 
to  exhibit  the  grinders." 

Everard  Romfrey,  of  sterner  stuff,  sees  the  advantage 
of  tempering  mercy  with  justice: 2 

"To  his  mind  the  game-laws  were  the  corner-stone  of  Law,  and 
of  a  man's  right  to  hold  his  own;  and  so  delicately  did  he  think 
the  country  poised,  that  an  attack  on  them  threatened  the  struc- 
ture of  justice.  The  three  conjoined  Estates  were  therefore  his 
head  gamekeepers;  their  duty  was  to  back  him  against  the 
poacher,  if  they  would  not  see  the  country  tumble.  *  *  *  No 
tenants  were  forced  to  take  his  farms.  He  dragged  no  one  by 
the  collar.  He  gave  them  liberty  to  go  to  Australia,  Canada,  the 
Americas,  if  they  liked.  *  *  *  Still  there  were  grumbling 
tenants.  He  swarmed  with  game,  and  though  he  was  liberal, 
his  hares  and  his  birds  were  immensely  destructive:  computa- 
tion could  not  fix  the  damage  done  by  them.  Probably  the  farm- 
ers expected  them  not  to  eat.  *  There  are  two  parties  to  a  bar- 
gain/ said  Everard,  'and  one  gets  the  worst  of  it.  But  if  he  was 
never  obliged  to  make  it,  where' s  his  right  to  complain?'  Men 
of  sense  rarely  obtain  satisfactory  answers;  they  are  provoked 
to  despise  their  kind." 

He  returns  to  the  argument,  deepened  in  unavoidable 
pessimism: 3 

1  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  3.  2  Beauchamp's  Career,  19.  3  Ibid.t  28. 


198        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"This  behavior  of  corn-law  agitators  and  protectors  of  poach- 
ers was  an  hypocrisy  too  horrible  for  comment.  Everard 
sipped  claret." 

The  novels  which  depict  the  really  acute  phases  of  labor 
and  poverty, — Sybil,  Mary  Barton,  North  and  South,  Shir- 
ley, Alton  Locke,  Hard  Times,  (diagnosed  by  Macaulay 
as  "sullen  socialism"),  Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  Felix 
Holt, — are  apt  to  have  John  Barton's  kind  of  laugh,  if  any, 
"a  low  chuckle,  that  had  no  mirth  in  it."  But  the  author 
of  the  first  of  these  puts  into  another  story  a  pungent  lit- 
tle description: 1 

"The  Elysians  consisted  of  a  few  thousand  beautified  mortals, 
the  only  occupation  of  whose  existence  was  enjoyment;  the  rest 
of  the  population  comprised  some  millions  of  Gnomes  and  Sylphs, 
who  did  nothing  but  work,  and  ensured  by  their  labour  the  felic- 
ity of  the  superior  class." 

It  is  inevitable  that  the  artist  and  the  humorist  should 
find  their  most  congenial  fields  in  those  relationships  that 
are  vital,  and  not  too  hampered  by  the  technique  of  more 
formal  and  crystallized  institutions.  Prisons,  Asylums, 
Courts,  and  the  whole  legal  machinery,  offer  a  less  in- 
viting prospect  than  do  political  parties  and  theories,  and 
the  contrast  between  social  strata. 

Yet  the  first  third  of  our  list, — Peacock,  Lytton,  Disraeli, 
and  Dickens, — with  the  addition  of  Reade,  Trollope,  and 
Butler,  did  not  shrink  from  contact  with  red  tape.  Dick- 
ens and  Reade  have  the  monopoly  of  the  department  of 
Charities  and  Corrections,  though  Lytton  asserted  the 
purpose  of  Paul  Clifford  to  be  an  indictment  against  so- 

1  The  Infernal  Marriage,  353.  In  The  Young  Duke  there  is  an  allusion  to  "the 
two  thousand  Brahmins  who  constitute  the  World,"  and  to  "the  ten  or  twelve 
or  fifteen  millions  of  Pariahs  for  whose  existence  philosophers  have  hitherto 
failed  to  adduce  a  satisfactory  cause."  132. 


INSTITUTIONS  199 

ciety's  manufacture  and  destruction  of  criminals;  and  of 
Night  and  Morning  to  show  the  injustice  and  fallacy  of  its 
treatment  respectively  of  vice  and  crime.  In  regard  to  the 
latter  he  says,  in  the  Preface: 

"Let  a  child  steal  an  apple  in  sport,  let  a  starvling  steal  a  roll 
in  despair,  and  Law  conducts  them  to  the  Prison,  for  evil 
communications  to  mellow  them  for  the  gibbet.  But  let  a 
man  spend  one  apprenticeship  from  youth  to  old  age  in  vice — 
let  him  devote  a  fortune,  perhaps  colossal,  to  the  wholesale  de- 
moralization of  his  kind — and  he  may  be  surrounded  with  the 
adulation  of  the  so-called  virtuous,  and  be  served  upon  its  knee 
by  that  Lackey — the  Modern  World!" 

Dickens  starts  his  account  with  the  English  prison  in 
Pickwick,  and  closes  it  in  Little  Dorrit.  But  it  is  in  David 
Copperfield  that  he  stops  to  point  out  the  whole  thing  as 
a  stupid  error.  On  the  occasion  of  a  visit  to  the  "  immense 
and  solid  building,  erected  at  a  great  expense,"  he  re- 
flects,— 1 

"I  could  not  help  thinking  as  we  approached  the  gate,  what 
an  uproar  would  have  been  made  in  the  country,  if  any  deluded 
man  had  proposed  to  spend  one  half  the  money  it  had  cost,  on 
the  erection  of  an  industrial  school  for  the  young,  or  a  home  of 
refuge  for  the  deserving  old." 

Within,  he  finds  the  regime  of  solitary,  unemployed  con- 
finement, and  the  official  bait  for  professions  of  penitence, 
fine  breeders  of  hypocrisy,  six  years  before  Reade  makes 
the  same  point  in  Never  too  Late  to  Mend.  But  he  sees  in 
the  exhibitions  of  No.  27  and  No.  28 — the  Prize  Show,  the 
Crowning  Glory — Lattimer,  and  Uriah  Heep,  an  oppor- 
tunity for  his  riotious  caricature;  while  to  Reade  this  de- 

1  P.  430.  "Yet  no  entering  wedge  of  criticism  was  possible,  in  so  impervious 
an  object.  Nobody  appeared  to  have  the  least  idea  that  there  was  any  other 
system,  but  the  system,  to  be  considered." 


2OO       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

generation  of  character  is  a  wholly  serious  matter.  Indeed, 
Reade  waxes  so  wroth  over  the  cruelty,  mental  and  physi- 
cal, practiced  upon  the  hopeless  victims  that  the  satire 
itself  is  as  scorching  as  Swift's,  though  of  course  of  less 
clear  a  flame. 

Yet  the  warden  Hawes,  chief  culprit  through  main  re- 
sponsibility, is  analyzed  as  after  all  irresponsible,  on  psy- 
chological and  social  grounds: 1 

"  Barren  of  mental  resources,  too  stupid  to  see,  far  less  read, 
the  vast  romance  that  lay  all  around  him,  every  cell  a  volume; 
too  mindless  to  comprehend  his  own  grand  situation  on  a  salient 
of  the  State  and  of  human  nature,  and  to  discern  the  sacred  and 
endless  pleasures  to  be  gathered  there,  this  unhappy  dolt,  flung 
into  a  lofty  situation  by  shallow  blockheads,  who,  like  himself, 
saw  in  a  jail  nothing  greater  or  more  than  a  ' place  of  punish- 
ment/ must  still  like  his  prisoners  and  the  rest  of  us  have  some 
excitement  to  keep  him  from  going  dead.  *  *  *  Growth 
is  the  nature  *  *  *  even  of  an  unnatural  habit.  *  *  * 
Torture  had  grown  upon  stupid,  earnest  Hawes;  it  seasoned  that 
white  of  egg,  a  mindless  existence." 

The  satisfaction  one  has  in  seeing  him  finally  routed  and 
dismissed  is  enhanced  by  the  manner  of  his  exit.  He 
is  given  permission  to  collect  his  belongings  before  depar- 
ture:— 2 

"I  have  nothing  to  take  out  of  the  jail,  man/  replied  Hawes 
rudely,  'except' — and  here  he  did  a  bit  of  pathos  and  dignity — 
'my  zeal  for  Her  Majesty's  service,  and  my  integrity.' 

"'Ah/  replied  Mr.  Lacy,  quietly,  'You  won't  want  any  help 
to  carry  them.'" 

Next  in  order  comes  the  "Visiting  Injustice,"  a  pur- 
blind creature,  who  sees  only  what  the  warden  points  out 

1  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  286.  *  Ibid.,  415. 


INSTITUTIONS  2OI 

to  him,  and  comforts  a  tortured  prisoner  with  pious  ex- 
hortations to  be  patient  and  submit:  l 

"Item.  An  occasion  for  twaddling  had  come,  and  this  good 
soul  seized  it,  and  twaddled  into  a  man's  ear  who  was  fainting  on 
the  rack." 

Later  a  sarcastic  contrast  is  drawn  between  the  dinner 
the  official  enjoys  at  home  and  the  convict's  gruel  he  had 
just  ordered  diluted.2 

The  first  chaplain,  well  meaning  and  gentle,  is  also  a 
failure,  through  simple  inanity: 3 

"Yet  Mr.  Jones  was  not  a  hypocrite  nor  a  monster;  he  was 
only  a  commonplace  man — a  thing  moulded  by  circumstances 
instead  of  moulding  them.  *  *  *  But  at  the  head  of  a  strug- 
gling nation,  or  in  the  command  of  an  army  in  time  of  war,  or  at 
the  head  of  the  religious  department  of  a  jail,  fighting  against 
human  wolves,  tigers,  and  foxes,  to  be  commonplace  is  an  in- 
iquity and  leads  to  crime." 

On  the  enlightened  officialdom  that  permits  all  this, 
Reade  is  one  with  Dickens.  When  an  urgent  appeal  for 
investigation  is  sent  to  headquarters,  the  reply  is  returned 
that  the  inspector  would  reach  that  place  in  his  normal 
circuit  in  six  weeks: 4 

'"Six  weeks  is  not  long  to  wait  for  help  in  a  matter  of  life  and 
death/  thought  the  eighty-pounders,  the  clerks  who  execute 
England." 

Most  unpardonable  of  all  are  such  cases  as  Carter, —  5 

1  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  360. 

2  This  foreshadows  a  similar  scene  in  Frank  Norris's  Octopus. 
8  Ibid.,  182. 

4  Ibid.,  345- 

6  Ibid.,  229.  The  antipodal  point  of  view  in  Latter  Day  Pamphlets  illustrates 
vividly  the  availability  of  satire  for  either  side  of  a  cause. 


2O2       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"*  *  *  half-witted,  half-responsible  creatures,  missent 
to  jail  by  shallow  judges  contentedly  executing  those  shallow 
laws  they  ought  to  modify  and  stigmatise  until  civilization 
shall  come  and  correct  them." 

The  Bench  and  Bar  are  tempting  game  for  those  who 
enjoy  the  absurdity  of  legal  tricks  and  manners.  Dis- 
raeli pursues  it  in  the  Camelopard  Court,  in  Popanilla; 
Dickens  in  Pickwicky  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  Bleak  House, 
Our  Mutual  Friend,  not  to  mention  the  Circumlocution 
and  Prerogative  Offices;  Trollope  in  Orley  Farm;  and  But- 
ler in  Erewhon. 

Furnival,  attorney  for  the  defence,  makes  an  eloquent 
and  persuasive  appeal  in  behalf  of  Lady  Mason:  1 

"And  yet  as  he  sat  down  he  knew  that  she  had  been  guilty! 
*  *  *  and  knowing  that,  he  had  been  able  to  speak  as 
though  her  innocence  were  a  thing  of  course.  That  those  wit- 
nesses had  spoken  truth  he  also  knew,  and  yet  he  had  been  able 
to  hold  them  up  to  the  execration  of  all  around  them  as  though 
they  had  committed  the  worst  of  crimes  from  the  foulest  of  mo- 
tives !  And  more  than  this,  stranger  than  this,  worse  than  this, — 
when  the  legal  world  knew — as  the  legal  world  soon  did  know — 
that  all  this  had  been  so,  the  legal  world  found  no  fault  with  Mr. 
Furnival,  conceiving  that  he  had  done  his  duty  by  his  client  in 
a  manner  becoming  an  English  barrister  and  an  English  gentle- 
man." 

Contempt  for  chicanery  and  injustice,  scorn  for  down- 
right oppression  and  exploitation,  are  notes  often  sounded. 
Much  more  rare  is  an  expression  of  sympathy  for  aspir- 
ing but  baffled  mediocrity,  with  its  converse  satire  for 
those  at  fault..  The  most  striking  example  is  given  by 
Trollope.  An  introductory  chapter,  with  a  title  and  a  re- 
frain of  Vce  Victis!  is  devoted  to  this  subject: 2 

1  Orley  Farm,  III,  237.  *  The  Bertrams,  5. 


INSTITUTIONS  203 

"There  is  sympathy  for  the  hungry  man,  but  there  is  no  sym- 
pathy for  the  unsuccessful  man  who  is  not  hungry.  If  a  fellow- 
mortal  be  ragged,  humanity  will  subscribe  to  mend  his  clothes; 
but  humanity  will  subscribe  nothing  to  mend  his  ragged  hopes 
so  long  as  his  outside  coat  shall  be  whole  and  decent." 

This  indictment  is  hung  on  the  peg  of  the  competitive 
examination,  a  device  satirized  also  by  Peacock  and  Dick- 
ens, for  being  a  pretentious  failure.  Trollope  concludes 
a  sarcastic  exhortation  to  all  to  persevere  in  the  mad  scram- 
ble for  capricious  rewards,  with  this  reflection: 1 

"There  is  something  very  painful  in  these  races  which  we  Eng- 
lish are  always  running  to  one  who  has  tenderness  enough  to 
think  of  the  nine  beaten  horses  instead  of  the  one  who  has  con- 
quered." 

When  the  tale  of  twentieth  century  satire  shall  be  told, 
considerable  space  will  have  to  be  devoted  to  Militarism  ^< 
versus  Pacifism.  But  the  Victorians  lived,  if  not  in  piping 
times  of  peace,  at  least  in  a  time  reasonably  peaceful,  for 
their  island  heard  little  but  echoes  of  the  European  cannon; 
a  condition  which  tended  to  keep  men's  minds  at  home  and 
occupied  with  internal  affairs.  The  satirists  therefore 
have  little  to  say  about  war.  Peacock  unveils  the  policy 
of  launching  a  foreign  war  in  order  to  smother  discontent 
over  domestic  troubles.  In  such  stories  as  Shirley,  Silas 
Marner,  and  others  located  in  or  soon  after  the  Napoleonic 
Era,  are  scattered  parenthetical  remarks;  as  for  instance 
the  opening  scene  of  An  Amazing  Marriage ,  "when 
crowned  heads  were  running  over  Europe,  crying  out  for 
charity's  sake  to  be  amused  after  their  tiresome  work  of 
slaughter;  and  you  know  what  a  dread  they  have  of  mo- 
ping." In  Disraeli's  Ixion,  Mars  is  not  popular  in  Olym- 

*The  Bertrams >  8. 


2O4       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

plan  circles,  being  despised  as  "a  brute,  more  a  bully  than 
a  hero.  Not  at  all  in  the  best  set."  Accordingly,  since, 
as  we  are  reminded  by  Phillips  in  his  Modern  Europe, 
"  the  British  lion,  turned  ruminant,  had  been  browsing  in 
the  pleasant  pastures  of  peace  to  the  melodious  piping  of 
Bright  and  Cobden,"  and  since  it  had,  when  required,  the 
less  melodious  taunting  of  Carlyle,  it  needed  at  this  time 
no  Aristophanes  or  Swift  to  mock  at  the  madness  of  mili- 
tarism. 

In  organized  religion  we  see  a  paradoxical  and  yet  natu- 
ral enough  operation  of  mortal  psychology.  In  its  primi- 
tive origin  it  sprang  from  two  opposite  sources,  human  in- 
nocence and  human  craft.  In  his  innocence  man  believed 
that  his  immortal  life  must  put  on  mortality,  become  in- 
carnate in  architecture,  creed,  ritual,  before  it  could  be 
lived.  And  in  his  craft  he  discovered  that  the  incorrupti- 
ble could  be  made  to  put  on  corruption, — to  the  great  ad- 
vantage of  an  entirely  terrestrial  ambition.  These  two 
factors,  conjoined  with  the  ubiquitous  impulse  to  social- 
ize feelings  and  thoughts  as  well  as  actions,  have  suc- 
ceeded in  so  clothing  and  housing  the  wistful  spirit  which 
for  itself  asks  no  more  than  an  assurance  of  some  divinity 
dwelling  without  or  within  us,  that  its  elaborate  trappings 
and  conspicuous  paraphernalia  have  become  shining  marks 
for  those  who  see  the  possible  absurdity  in  this  material- 
izing of  the  spiritual. 

Until  recently,  however,  few  shafts  have  penetrated  to 
the  heart  of  the  discrepancy.  Most  of  them  have  been 
aimed  at  the  broad  and  inviting  surface  of  obvious  in- 
consistencies: indulgence  in  material  luxury  on  the.  part 
of  an  institution  founded  to  further  the  spiritual  life;  dom- 
inance of  authority  in  a  realm  that  should  be  free;  flour- 
ishing of  bigotry,  greed,  cruelty,  hypocrisy,  in  the  exclu- 


INSTITUTIONS  20$ 

sive  garden  of  all  the  virtues;  unlovely  partisan  disputes 
and  recriminations  in  connection  with  the  one  thing  that 
best  can  symbolize  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

The  distinction  must  here  be  made  between  the  official 
representatives  of  the  Church  as  such  representatives,  and 
as  mere  human  beings.  In  this  discussion  therefore  cler- 
gymen are  not  cited  as  cases  in  point  unless  they  are 
clearly  meant  by  their  authors  to  be  taken  as  clergy  and 
not  as  men. 

The  Chadband  of  Dickens,  for  instance,  and  the  Bute 
Crawley  and  Charles  Honeyman  of  Thackeray,  stand 
on  their  own  feet,  and  share  the  common  lot  of  satirized 
humanity;  neither  of  these  novelists  having  an  arrow  from 
his  full  quiver  for  the  Church  itself.  Nor  has  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
though  her  North  and  South  hinges  on  the  tragedy  of  Mr. 
Dale,  an  Anglican  minister  turned  Dissenter.  George 
Eliot  spares  likewise  the  Institution  she  had  herself  out- 
grown. Her  Clerical  Lives,  her  Reverends  Irwine  and 
Lyon,  such  diverse  types  as  the  modest  Dinah  Morris  and 
the  dominating  Savonarola,  are  treated  sympathetically, 
as  is  also  the  pitiful  fanaticism  of  Lantern  Yard.  Lytton 
and  Reade  too  grant  the  consent  implied  in  silence.  But 
other  half  speak  out,  briefly  or  at  length. 

Peacock  is  most  impressed  with  the  uselessness  of  an  in- 
stitution which  seems  to  exist  for  the  gratification  of  its 
dignitaries.  The  candid  Mr.  Sarcastic,  after  horrifying 
Miss  Pennylove  on  the  question  of  auctioning  off  brides, 
proceeds  in  his  frank  career: 1 

"I  irreparably  offended  the  Reverend  Dr.  Vorax  by  telling 
him,  that  having  a  nephew,  whom  I  wished  to  shine  in  the  church, 
I  was  on  the  lookout  for  a  luminous  butler,  and  a  cook  of  solid 

1  Melincourty  II,  10.  Cf.  some  other  clerical  cognomens.  Caster,  Grovelgrub; 
and  the  way  in  which  they  were  lived  up  to. 


2O6       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

capacity,  under  whose  joint  tuition  he  might  graduate.  'Who 
knows/  said  I,  'but  he  may  immortalize  himself  at  the  Univer- 
sity, by  giving  his  name  to  a  pudding?"1 

In  his  medieval  tale  he  takes  up  the  Church  as  an  insti- 
tution, with  his  favorite,  back-handed,  historical  thrust. 
The  Saxons,  it  seems,  had  attacked  the  Bangor  monastery 
and  killed  twelve  hundred  monks: 1 

"This  was  the  first  overt  act  in  which  the  Saxons  set  forth 
their  new  sense  of  a  religion  of  peace.  It  is  alleged,  indeed,  that 
these  twelve  hundred  monks  supported  themselves  by  the  la- 
bour of  their  own  hands.  If  they  did  so,  it  was,  no  doubt,  a  gross 
heresy;  but  whether  it  deserved  the  castigation  it  received  from 
Saint  Augustin's  proselytes,  may  be  a  question  in  polemics. 
*  *  *  The  rabble  of  Britons  must  have  seen  little  more  than 
the  superficial  facts  that  the  lands,  revenues,  privileges,  and  so 
forth,  which  once  belonged  to  Druids  and  so  forth,  now  belonged 
to  abbots,  bishops,  and  so  forth,  who,  like  their  extruded  precurs- 
ors, walked  occasionally  in  a  row,  chanting  unintelligible  words, 
and  never  speaking  in  common  language  but  to  exhort  the  people 
to  fight;  having,  indeed,  better  notions  than  their  predecessors  of 
building,  apparel,  and  cookery;  and  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
means  of  obtaining  good  wine,  and  of  the  final  purpose  for  which 
it  was  made." 

To  such  as  this  we  have  Thackeray's  counter-blast,  with 
admonition, —  2 

"And  don't  let  us  give  way  to  the  vulgar  prejudice  that  cler- 
gyman are  an  overpaid  and  luxurious  body  of  men.  * 
From  reading  the  works  of  some  modern  writers  of  repute,  you 
would  fancy  that  a  parson's  life  was  passed  in  gorging  himself 
with  plum-pudding  and  port  wine;  and  that  his  Reverence's  fat 
chaps  were  always  greasy  with  the  crackling  of  tithe  pigs.  Cari- 

1  The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin,  65.    There  is  a  similar  hit  through  Friar  Tuck, 
in  Maid  Marian,  30. 

2  Book  of  Snobs,  232. 


INSTITUTIONS  2O/ 

caturists  delight  to  represent  him  so:  round,  short-necked,  pim- 
ple-faced, apoplectic,  bursting  out  of  waistcoat  like  a  black-pud- 
ding, a  shovel-hatted  fuzz-wigged  Silenus." 

Whereas,  he  goes  on  at  length  to  show,  the  reverse  is  the 
case.  Both  sides  are  more  or  less  illustrative  of  the  argu- 
ment ad  hominem. 

It  is  Trollope  who  really  writes  of  Clerical  Snobs.  The 
house-party  at  Chalicotes  shelters  a  hierarchy.  Mr.  Rob- 
arts  arrives, —  1 

"And  then  the  vicar  shook  hands  with  Mrs.  Proudie,  in  that 
deferential  manner  which  is  due  from  a  vicar  to  his  bishop's 
wife;  and  Mrs.  Proudie  returned  the  greeting  with  all  that  smil- 
ing condescension  which  a  bishop's  wife  should  show  to  a  vicar." 

From  here  the  "young,  flattered  fool  of  a  parson"  is  per- 
suaded to  go  to  Gatherum  Castle  and  there  gets  into  trou- 
ble. Brought  to  his  senses,  he  meditates  ruefully, —  2 

"Why  had  he  come  to  this  horrid  place?  Had  he  not  every- 
thing at  home  which  the  heart  of  man  could  desire?  No;  the 
heart  of  man  can  desire  deaneries — the  heart,  that  is,  of  the  man 
vicar;  and  the  heart  of  the  man  dean  can  desire  bishoprics;  and 
before  the  eyes  of  the  man  bishop  does  there  not  loom  the  trans- 
cendental glory  of  Lambeth?" 

The  mixture  of  affectionate  indulgence,  shrewd  amuse- 
ment, and  fundamental  loyalty  which  made  up  Trollope's 
attitude  is  recorded  in  this  symbolic  portrait:  3 

"As  the  archdeacon  stood  up  to  make  his  speech,  erect  in  the 
middle  of  that  little  square,  he  looked  like  an  ecclesiastical 

1  Framley  Parsonage,  23.  On  another  occasion  we  are  told  that  "Mrs.  Prou- 
die's  manner  might  have  showed  to  a  very  close  observer  that  she  knew  the 
difference  between  a  bishop  and  an  archdeacon." 

*Ibid.,    86. 

3  The  Warden,  50. 


2O8        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

statue  placed  there,  as  a  fitting  impersonation  of  the  church 
militant  here  on  earth;  his  shovel-hat,  large,  new,  and  well-pro- 
nounced, a  churchman's  hat  in  every  inch,  declared  the  profes- 
sion as  plainly  as  does  the  Quaker's  broad  brim;  his  heavy  eye- 
brows, large,  open  eyes,  and  full  mouth  and  chin  expressed  the 
solidity  of  his  order;  the  broad  chest,  amply  covered  with  fine 
cloth,  told  how  well  to  do  was  its  estate;  one  hand  ensconced 
within  his  pocket  evinced  the  practical  hold  which  our  mother 
church  keeps  on  her  temporal  possessions;  and  the  other,  loose 
for  action,  was  ready  to  fight,  if  need  be,  in  her  defense;  and,  be- 
low these,  the  decorous  breeches,  and  neat  black  gaiters  showing 
so  admirably  that  well-turned  leg,  betokened  the  stability,  the 
decency,  the  outward  beauty  and  grace  of  our  church  establish- 
ment." 

It  is  naturally  in  the  Cathedral  Series  that  clerical  mat- 
ters most  abound,  but  they  appear  in  other  volumes,  es- 
pecially The  Bertrams.  Caroline  Waddington,  speaking 
of  vicars,  makes  an  empiric  induction: 1 

"I  judge  by  what  I  see.  They  are  generally  fond  of  eating, 
very  cautious  about  their  money,  untidy  in  their  own  houses, 
and  apt  to  go  to  sleep  after  dinner." 

George  Bertram,  author  of  The  Romance  of  Scripture, 
and  The  Fallacies  of  Early  History >  exponents  of  the  Higher 
Criticism,  over  which  "there  was  a  comfortable  row  at 
Oxford,"  discusses  religion  with  his  cousin  the  curate. 
The  attitude  of  prayer,  he  says,  is  beautiful  from  the  com- 
munion it  symbolizes.  But  imagine  the  attitude  with  no 
such  communion, — 2 

"  You  will  at  once  run  down  the  whole  gamut  of  humanity 
from  Saint  Paul  to  Pecksniff." 

As  to  the  practicability  of  freedom  of  thought,  the 
churchman  argues, — 

1   The  Bertrams,   114.  2  Ibid.,  303. 


INSTITUTIONS  .  2O9 

"If  every  man  and  every  child  is  to  select,  how  shall  we  ever 
have  a  creed?  and  if  no  creed,  how  shall  we  have  a  church?" 

And  the  layman  concludes  for  him, — 

"And  if  no  church,  how  then  parsons?  Follow  it  on,  and  it 
comes  to  that.  But,  in  truth,  you  require  too  much,  and  so  you 
get — nothing." 

An  ingenuous  young  girl  in  another  story  inquires, —  1 

"*  *  *  what  is  all  religion  but  washing  black  sheep  white; 
making  the  black  a  little  less  black,  scraping  a  spot  white  here 
and  there?" 

Whoever  may  be  meant  by  Thackeray  as  "gross  cari- 
caturists," it  cannot  be  Trollope,  for  even  Mr.  Slope  is  less 
repulsive  than  the  alleged  portraiture,  and  the  Epicureans 
are  models  of  refinement,  and  treated  with  a  corresponding 
delicacy.  Dr.  Stanhope,  sinecurist  and  pastor  in  absentia, 
had  the  appearance  of  "a  benevolent,  sleepy  old  lion." 
Like  the  rector  at  Clavering,  and  the  Barchester  arch- 
deacon (who  kept  his  jolly  old  volume  of  Rabelais  locked 
in  his  study  desk,  but  brought  it  out  in  the  security  of  sol- 
itude as  an  antidote  for  the  tedium  of  sermon-writing),  he 
had  a  taste  for  "romances  and  poetry  of  the  lightest  and 
not  always  the  most  moral  description."  And  like  Dr. 
Grant,  in  Mansfield  Park, —  2 

"He  was  thoroughly  a  bon  vivant.  *  *  *  He  had  much  to 
forgive  in  his  own  family,  *  *  *  and  had  forgiven  every- 
thing— except  inattention  to  his  dinner.  *  *  *  That  he  had 
religious  convictions  must  be  believed;  but  he  rarely  obtruded 
them,  even  on  his  children." 

The  dignified  bishop,  on  hearing  a  startling  piece  of 
news, —  3 

1  Sir  Harry  Hotspur,  93.  2  Barchester  Towers,  77. 

8   The  Warden,  32. 


2IO       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"*  *  *  did  not  whistle.  We  believe  that  they  lose  the 
power  of  doing  so  on  being  consecrate;  and  that  in  these  days 
we  might  as  easily  meet  a  corrupt  judge  as  a  whistling  bishop." 

The  subject  of  foreign  missions  is  glanced  at  in  a  con- 
versation between  Sowerby  and  Harold  Smith;  but  on  the 
the  whole  it  is  another  neglected  topic.  Disraeli  observes 
in  Sybil  that  a  missionary  from  Tahiti  might  be  spared  for 
needed  work  in  Wodgate,  England.  The  rest  in  silence, 
until  Butler,  post- Victorian,  exposes,  with  some  of  his 
choicest  irony,  the  fallacy  that  underlies  all  proselyting 
logic. 

Bronte  and  Kingsley  are  openly  partisan,  with  a  strain 
of  the  crudeness  inseparable  from  antagonistic  warmth. 
They  are  also  on  the  same  side,1  the  broad-church  posi- 
tion, opposed  to  Tractarian  principles  as  much  as  to 
Catholicism  itself. 

The  real  acid  of  the  first  chapter  of  Shirley,  entitled 
Levitical,  and  promising  only  "cold  lentils  and  vinegar 
without  oil,"  is  not  poured  upon  the  heads  of  the  three 
curates  and  the  rector,  failures  though  they  all  were  as 
spiritual  shepherds,  but  upon  the  contemporary  situation. 
In  1812,  the  author  says,  there  was  no  Pastoral  Aid  nor 
Additional  Curates  Society  to  help  out  rectors: 2 

"The  present  successors  of  the  apostles,  disciples  of  Dr.  Pusey 
and  tools  of  the  Propaganda,  were  at  that  time  being  hatched 
under  cradle-blankets,  or  undergoing  regeneration  by  nursery- 
baptism  in  wash-hand-basins.  You  could  not  have  guessed  by 
looking  at  any  one  of  them  that  the  Italian-ironed  double 
frills  of  its  net  cap  surrounded  the  brows  of  a  pre-ordained  spe- 
cially sanctified  successor  of  Saint  Paul,  Saint  Peter  or  Saint 

1  Although  Kingsley  threw   Shirley   aside   because   the   opening  seemed  to 
him  vulgar.    Harriet  Martineau  said  the  same  of  Villette. 

2  Shirley,  I,  2. 


INSTITUTIONS  211 

John;  nor  could  you  have  foreseen  in  the  folds  of  its  long  night- 
gown the  white  surplice  in  which  it  was  hereafter  cruelly  to  ex- 
ercise the  souls  of  its  parishioners,  and  strangely  to  non-plus 
its  old-fashioned  vicar  by  flourishing  aloft  in  a  pulpit  the  shirt- 
like  raiment  which  had  never  before  waved  higher  than  the 
reading-desk." 

"Yet  even  then/'  she  adds,  "the  rare  but  precious  plant 
existed — three  rods  of  Aaron  blossomed  within  a  circuit 
of  twenty  miles."  Their  clerical  functions  are  summed  up 
later  by  the  gardener  William: 1 

"They're  allus  magnifying  their  office:  it  is  a  pity  but  their 
office  could  magnify  them;  but  it  does  nought  o'  t'  soart." 

The  autobiographical  heroine  of  Vttlettc  recounts  her 
experience  of  being  subjected  to  persuasive  priestly  ex- 
hortation, and  ironically  repeats  the  phrases: 2 

"I  half  realized  myself  in  that  condition  also;  passed  under 
discipline,  moulded,  trained,  inoculated,  and  so  on." 

She  is  enabled  to  resist,  because, 

«*  *  *  there  was  a  hollowness  within,  and  a  flourish 
around  'Holy  Church'  which  tempted  me  but  moderately." 

She  discusses  at  length  a  Papist  pamphlet  left  on  her 
desk  for  her  perusal: 3 

"The  voice  of  that  sly  little  book  was  a  honeyed  voice;  its  ac- 
cents were  all  unction  and  balm.  Here  roared  no  utterance  of 
Rome's  thunders,  no  blasting  of  the  breath  of  her  displeasure. 
*  *  *  Far  be  it  from  her  to  threaten  or  to  coerce;  her  wish 
was  to  guide  and  win.  She  persecute?  Oh  dear  no!  not  on  any 
account!  *  *  *  It  was  a  canting,  sentimental,  shallow 
little  book,  yet  *  *  *  I  was  amused  with  the  gambols 

1  Shirley,  I,  355-  z  Villette,  II,  186.  3  Villette,  II,  210-11. 


212        SATIRE   IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

of  this  unlicked  wolf-cub  muffled  in  the  fleece,  and  mimicking 
the  bleat  of  a  guileless  lamb.  Portions  of  it  reminded  me  of  cer- 
tain Wesleyan  Methodist  tracts  I  had  once  read  when  a  child; 
they  were  flavoured  with  about  the  same  seasoning  of  excitation 
to  fanaticism.  *  *  *  I  smiled  then  over  this  dose  of  maternal 
tenderness,  coming  from  the  ruddy  old  lady  of  the  Seven  Hills; 
smiled,  too,  at  my  own  disinclination,  not  to  say  disability,  to 
meet  their  melting  favours." 

As  her  reason  is  not  swayed  by  the  arguments  of  the 
"Moloch  Church/'  neither  is  her  fancy  kindled  by  its  rit- 
ual: l 

"Neither  full  procession  nor  high  mass,  nor  swarming  tapers, 
nor  swinging  censers,  nor  ecclesiastical  millinery,  nor  celes- 
tial jewelry,  touched  my  imagination  a  whit.  What  I  saw  struck 
me  as  tawdry,  not  grand;  as  grossly  material,  not  poetically 
spiritual." 

Kingsley  widens  his  criticism  from  the  personal  to  the 
social  point  of  view.  He  objects  to  luxury  not  so  much 
because  it  shows  up  the  luxurious  as  because  it  takes  away 
even  the  necessities  from  those  who  have  not,  to  add  yet 
more  luxuries  to  those  that  have.  He  questions — 2 

"*  *  *  how  a  really  pious  and  universally  respected  arch- 
bishop, living  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  one  of  the  worst  in- 
fernos of  destitution,  disease,  filth,  and  profligacy — can  yet  find 
it  in  his  heart  to  save  £120,000  out  of  church  revenues,  and  leave 
it  to  his  family;  *  *  *  how  Irish  bishops  can  reconcile  it 
to  their  consciences  to  leave  behind  them,  one  and  all,  large  for- 
tunes *  *  *  taken  from  the  pockets  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
population,  whom  they  have  been  put  there  to  convert  to  Prot- 
estantism for  the  last  three  hundred  years — with  what  success, 
all  the  world  knows." 

,  II,  220.  »  Alton  Lockt,  186. 


INSTITUTIONS  213 

Moreover,  because  he  sees  in  the  church  a  possible  van- 
guard to  civilization,  he  rebels  against  its  retrogressive  and 
obstructive  policy.  He  laments  that  the  working  men  do 
not  trust  the  clergy: 1 

"They  suspect  them  to  be  mere  tubs  to  the  whale — mere  sub- 
stitutes for  education,  slowly  and  late  adopted,  in  order  to  stop 
the  mouths  of  the  importunate.  They  may  misjudge  the  clergy; 
but  whose  fault  is  it  if  they  do?  *  *  *  Every  spiritual  re- 
form since  the  time  of  John  Wesley,  has  had  to  establish  itself 
in  the  teeth  of  insult,  calumny,  and  persecution.  Every  eccle- 
siastical reform  comes  not  from  within,  but  from  without  your 
body.  Everywhere  we  see  the  clergy,  *  *  *  proclaiming 
themselves  the  advocates  of  Toryism,  *  *  *  chosen  ex- 
clusively from  the  classes  which  crush  us  down;  *  *  *  com- 
manding us  to  swallow  down,  with  faith  as  passive  and  implicit 
as  that  of  a  Papist,  the  very  creeds  from  which  their  own  bad 
example,  and  their  scandalous  neglect,  have  *  *  *  alien- 
ated us;  *  *  *  betraying  in  every  tract,  in  every  sermon, 
an  ignorance  of  the  doubts,  the  feelings,  the  very  language  of  the 
masses,  which  would  be  ludicrous,  were  it  not  accursed  before 
God  and  man." 

Meredith  expresses  the  same  idea,  with  the  difference 
that  he  does  not  speak  apologetically  from  within,  but  with 
the  unqualified  disapproval  of  the  outsider.  Jenny  Den- 
ham,  an  incisive  and  thoughtful  woman,  says,2 

1  Alton  Locke,  229-30.  Cf.  2O5ff.  for  an  equally  forceful  presentation  of  the 
other  side  through  the  eloquent  rebuke  to  illogical  complaints,  given  by  Eleanor 
Staunton.  It  is  in  Yeast  that  Papacy  is  satirized,  a  typical  hit  being  the  un- 
conscious irony  of  Vieuxbois'  assertion, — "'I  do  not  think  that  we  have  any 
right  in  the  nineteenth  century  to  contest  an  opinion  which  the  fathers  of  the 
Church  gave  in  the  fourth."  114.  Alton  Locke  also  says, — "A  man-servant, 
a  soldier  and  a  Jesuit,  are  to  me  the  three  great  wonders  of  humanity — three 
forms  of  moral  suicide,  for  which  I  never  had  the  slightest  gleam  of  sympathy, 
or  even  comprehension."  187. 

*  Beauchamp's  Carter,  622. 


214       SATIRE     IN   THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"My  experience  of  the  priest  in  our  country  is,  that  he  has 
abandoned — he's  dead  against  the  only  cause  that  can  justify 
and  keep  up  a  Church;  the  cause  of  the  poor — the  people.  He  is 
a  creature  of  the  moneyed  class.  I  look  on  him  as  a  pretender. " 

In  his  subtle  way  Meredith  satirizes  the  Catholic  Church 
by  having  the  Countess  de  Saldar  take  refuge  in  and  ap- 
prove of  it.  Its  great  asset  is  that  its  democracy  includes 
even  tailors.  That  it  is  the  only  true  spiritual  home  for 
a  true  gentleman  she  proves  by  citing  an  example.  A  no- 
ble knight  does  not  hesitate  at  telling  a  flat  falsehood  to 
save  a  lady,  being  safe  in  morality  because  "his  priest  was 
handy."  Her  nature  is  defined  as  the  truly  religious,  that 
is,  one  with  need  of  vicarious  strength  and  a  sense  of  re- 
newed absolution.  Another  exponent  is  Constance  Asper, 
in  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  whose  boudoir  was  filled  with 
expensive  Catholic  equipments,  affording  "every  invita- 
tion to  meditate  in  luxury  on  an  ascetic  religiousness." 

Butler  was  not  content  to  view  the  Church  from  his  ex- 
ternal position  with  the  silence  of  George  Eliot  or  the  cas- 
ual comments  of  Meredith.  The  intensity  of  his  icono- 
clasm  demanded  full  expression, — kept,  however,  from 
crudeness  by  his  ironic  finish,  and  from  injustice  by  his 
fundamental  reasonableness.  In  Erewhon  his  chief  point 
is  the  perfunctory  character  of  established  religion.  The 
Erewhonians  have  two  distinct  economic  currencies,  one 
of  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  system,  and  is  patronized 
by  all  who  wished  to  be  considered  respectable.  Yet  its 
funds  have  no  direct  value  in  the  community,  whose  actual 
business  is  conducted  on  the  other  commercial  system. 
The  Musical  Banks  excel  in  architecture,  and  keep  up  a 
routine  of  receiving  and  paying  checks.  But  their  patrons 
are  for  the  most  part  ladies  and  some  students  from  the 
College  of  Unreason.  Mrs.  Nosnibor,  a  staunch  share- 


INSTITUTIONS  215 

holder,  deplores  this  apparent  lack  of  public  interest,  and 
remarks  that  it  is  "indeed  melancholy  to  see  what  little 
heed  people  paid  to  the  most  precious  of  all  institutions." 
Her  guest  observes, —  1 

"I  could  say  nothing  in  reply,  but  I  have  ever  been  of  opin- 
ion that  the  greater  part  of  mankind  do  approximately  know 
where  they  get  that  which  does  them  good." 

The  Musical  Bankers  not  only  protest  too  much  as  to 
the  ascendancy  of  their  institution,  but  consistently  de- 
preciate the  other: 2 

"Even  those  who  to  my  certain  knowledge  kept  only  just 
enough  money  at  the  Musical  Banks  to  swear  by,  would  call  the 
other  banks  (where  their  securities  really  lay)  cold,  deadening, 
paralyzing,  and  the  like." 

As  to  the  cashiers  and  managers, — 3 

"  Few  people  would  speak  quite  openly  and  freely  before  them, 
which  struck  me  as  a  very  bad  sign.  *  *  *  The  less  thought- 
ful of  them  did  not  seem  particularly  unhappy,  but  many  were 
plainly  sick  at  heart,  though  perhaps  they  hardly  knew  it,  and 
would  not  have  owned  to  being  so.  Some  few  were  opponents 
of  the  whole  system;  but  these  were  liable  to  be  dismissed  from 
their  employment  at  any  moment,  and  this  rendered  them  very 
careful,  for  a  man  who  had  once  been  a  cashier  at  a  Musical 
Bank  was  out  of  the  field  for  other  employment,  and  was  gen- 

1  Erewhon  151. 

*  Ibid.,  15$. 

3  Ibid.,  157.  Cf.  Kingsley's  statement  that  the  working  men  distrust  the  clergy. 
In  The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  Butler  observes,  "A  clergyman,  again,  can  hardly 
ever  allow  himself  to  look  facts  fairly  in  the  face."  103.  Cf.  also  his  Note  Books, 
"  In  a  way  the  preachers  believe  what  they  preach,  but  it  is  as  men  who  have 
taken  a  bad  ten  pound  note  and  refuse  to  look  at  the  evidence  that  makes  for 
its  badness,  though,  if  the  note  were  not  theirs,  they  would  see  at  a  glance  that 
it  was  not  a  good  one."  190. 


2l6       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

erally  unfitted  for  it  by  reason  of  that  course  of  treatment  which 
was  commonly  called  his  education." 

Erewbon  Revisited  deals  more  specifically  with  the  mi- 
raculous and  doctrinal  side  of  Christianity,  mirrored  in  the 
account  of  the  origin  of  Sunchildism  and  its  connection 
with  the  old  Musical  Banks.  The  two  main  characters 
are  Hanky  and  Panky,  Professors  respectively  of  Wordly 
and  Unworldly  Wisdom.  They  are  carefully  distin- 
guished: l 

"  Panky  was  the  greater  humbug  of  the  two,  for  he  would 
humbug  even  himself — a  thing,  by  the  way,  not  very  hard  to  do; 
and  yet  he  was  the  less  successful  humbug;  *  *  *  Hanky 
was  the  mere  common,  superficial,  perfunctory  Professor,  who, 
being  a  Professor,  would  of  course  profess,  but  would  not  lie 
more  than  was  in  the  bond.  *  *  *  Panky,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  hardly  human;  he  had  thrown  himself  so  earnestly 
into  his  work,  that  he  had  become  a  living  lie.  If  he  had  had  to 
play  the  part  of  Othello  he  would  have  blacked  himself  all  over, 
and  very  likely  have  smothered  his  Desdemona  in  good  earnest. 
Hanky  would  hardly  have  blacked  himself  behind  the  ears, 
and  his  Desdemona  would  have  been  quite  safe." 

The  School  is  another  favorite  satirical  topic.    The  only 

,  v  ^  novelists  who  refrain  from  depicting  the  shortcomings  of 

V    '  the  educational  system  are  Disraeli,  Reade,  Mrs.  Gaskell, 

and  George  Eliot.    On  the  public  side,  Meredith  might  be 

added,  as  the  theme  of  Richard  Feverel,  though  educational, 

is  made  an  individual  matter. 

The  adverse  opinion  handed  down  on  the  methods  and 

1  Erewhon  Revisited,  39-40.  Panky,  who  wore  his  Sunchild  suit  backward,  as  a 
matter  of  dogma,  is  supposed  to  represent  the  Anglican,  and  Hanky  the  Jesuit. 
The  broad  church  is  represented  by  the  far  superior  Dr.  Downie.  Butler's 
positive  philosophy  is  expressed,  though  still  in  the  indirect  manner,  in  the 
account  of  Ydgrun  and  the  Ydgrunites:  Erewhon,  Chap.  XVII. 


INSTITUTIONS  217 

results  of  the  prevailing  system  is  more  unanimous  than 
is  the  case  with  other  subjects.  On  the  main  indictments, 
inefficiency  and  cruelty  in  the  lower  schools,  and  ineffi- 
ciency and  carelessness  in  the  higher,  there  is  no  minority 
report.  On  the  whole,  the  Victorians  were  innocent  of 
the  partisanship  that  arose  later  over  the  great  question 
of  Culture  versus  Efficiency  as  an  educational  ideal.  The 
primary  stages  might  be  allowed  a  modicum  of  the  prac- 
tical, though  Gradgrind's  "  facts  "  are  failures,  and  Squeers 
stands  in  solitary  glory  as  an  advocate  of  applied  arts  and 
manual  training.  Mr.  Tulliver  is  in  line  with  his  Zeitgeist 
in  fondly  supposing  the  best  thing  he  can  do  for  Tom  is  to 
send  him  to  an  expensive  private  school,  to  learn  Latin 
along  with  the  son  of  Lawyer  Wakem.  An  education  was 
tacitly  defined  as  that  which  makes  a  gentleman  of  you. 
And  though  no  one  would  dissent  from  Thackeray's  dictum 
that  "all  the  world  is  improving  except  the  gentlemen," 
neither  would  any  one  suppose  that  the  definition  might 
be  modified  or  expanded. 

A  number  realize  that  education  begins  at  home.  The 
close  father  and  son  relationship  satirized  in  the  case  of 
Sir  Austin  and  Richard  because  it  was  too  close  and  inflex- 
ible, is  presented  as  a  beautiful  ideal  in  those  of  Pisistratus 
and  Mr.  Caxton,  Kenelm  and  Squire  Chillingly,  Clive  and 
Colonel  Newcome,  and  the  Duke  of  Omnium  and  his 
sons.1 

In  David  Copperfield's  recollections  of  the  metallic 
Murdstone,  Arthur  Clennam's  of  his  childhood's  Sab- 
bath and  Alton  Locke's  of  his  mother's  fearful  bigotry, 
we  get  glimpses  into  the  pathos  of  the  old  Puritan  disci- 

1  In  The  Duke's  Children.  Cf.  The  Small  House  at  Allington,  498,  for  re- 
marks on  inadequate  parents.  Perhaps  Meredith's  picture  in  lighter  tones,  of 
Harry  Richmond  and  his  irresponsible  but  aspiring  father,  might  be  mentioned. 


2l8       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

pline.  These  are  too  sad  for  satire.  Butler,  no  less  sad,  is 
also  angry  enough  to  brand  it  with  his  caustic  wit.  Theo- 
bald and  Christina  Pontifex  are  texts  for  a  satiric  sermon 
on  parental  incompetence,  no  less  disastrous  although 
"All  was  done  in  love,  anxiety,  timidity,  stupidity,  and 
impatience."  After  the  scene  in  which  Theobald,  having 
punished  little  Ernest  severely  and  quite  wantonly,  rang 
the  bell  for  prayers,  "red-handed  as  he  was,"  his  visitor 
reflects  that  perhaps  it  was  fortunate  for  his  host —  l 

"*  *  *  triat  our  prayers  were  seldom  marked  by  any  very 
encouraging  degree  of  response,  for  if  I  had  thought  there  was 
the  slightest  chance  of  my  being  heard  I  should  have  prayed 
that  some  one  might  ere  long  treat  him  as  he  had  treated 
Ernest." 

The  keynote  of  this  most  Christian  system  is  uncon- 
sciously hit  upon  by  the  bewildered  little  lad  himself,  who 
later  concludes, — 2 

that  he  had  duties  towards  everybody,  lying  in 
wait  for  him  upon  every  side,  but  that  nobody  had  any  duties 
towards  him." 

Formal  education  naturally  falls  into  the  school  and  col- 
lege divisions.  We  have  the  former  presented  dramati- 
cally by  Bronte  in  Jane  Eyre  (and  more  impressionisti- 
cally  in  Villette),  by  Thackeray  in  The  Fatal  Boots  and 
Vanity  Fair,  by  Butler  in  'The  Way  of  All  Flesb,  and  by  the 
zealous  specialist  in  that  field.  It  has  been  counted  up  that 
Dickens  deals  with  twenty-eight  schools  and  mentions  a 
dozen  others.3  The  most  important  are  in  Nicholas  Nic- 
leby,  Dombey  and  Son,  David  Copperfield,  and  Hard  Times. 

1  Way  of  All  Flesh,  98. 

*Ibid.t  125. 

8  By  J.  L.  Hughes,  in  Dickens  as  an  Educator. 


INSTITUTIONS  219 

Major  Bagstock  is  contemplating  young  Rob,  a  prod- 
uct of  that  school  where  they  never  taught  honor,  but 
were  "particularly  strong  in  the  engendering  of  hypoc- 
risy," and  deduces  that  "it  never  pays  to  educate  that 
sort  of  people."  Whereupon —  l 

"The  simple  father  was  beginning  to  submit  that  he  hoped 
his  son,  the  quondam  Grinder,  huffed  and  cuffed,  and  flogged 
and  badged,  and  taught,  as  parrots  are,  by  a  brute  jobbed  into 
his  place  of  schoolmaster  with  as  much  fitness  for  it  as  a  hound, 
might  not  have  been  educated  on  quite  a  right  plan  in  some  un- 
discovered respect,  when  Mr.  Dombey,  angrily  repeating  'The 
usual  return!'  led  the  major  away." 

Young  David  Copperfield  profits  little  by  losing  Murd- 
stone  and  gaming  Creakle.  The  aspect  of  this  pleasant 
pedagogue  so  fascinates  the  gaze  of  the  boys  that  they 
cannot  keep  to  their  books.  When  a  culprit  is  called  be- 
fore the  tribunal, —  2 

"Mr.  Creakle  cuts  a  joke  before  he  beats  him,  and  we  laugh 
at  it, — miserable  little  dogs,  we  laugh,  with  our  visages  as  white 
as  ashes,  and  our  hearts  sinking  into  our  boots.  *  *  * 
Miserable  little  propitiators  of  a  remorseless  Idol,  how  abject 
we  were  to  him !  What  a  launch  in  life  I  think  it  now,  on  looking 
back,  to  be  so  mean  and  servile  to  a  man  of  such  parts  and  pre- 
tensions ! " 

From  this  infant  purgatory  the  step  to  the  college 
seems  a  long  one,  for  that  is  by  comparison  an  Elysium, 
however  inane  and  frivolous.  Those  whose  satiric  arrows 
speed  thither  are  Peacock,  Lytton,  Trollope,  Kingsley, 
and  Butler.  Thackeray  should  be  mentioned  for  his  two 
chapters  on  University  Snobs,  and  the  preceding  one  on 

1  Dombey  and  Sow,  II,  313.  *  David  Copperfield,  I,  92. 


22O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Clerical  Snobs,  in  which  he  describes  the  colleges  as  the 
last  strongholds  of  Feudalism;  concluding —  1 

"Why  is  the  poor  College  servitor  to  wear  that  name  and  that 
badge  still  ?  Because  Universities  are  the  last  places  into  which 
Reform  penetrates.  But  now  that  she  can  go  to  College  and 
back  for  five  shillings,  let  her  travel  down  thither." 

Squire  Headlong  inquires  in  vain  at  Oxford  for  "men 
of  taste  and  philosophers."  Scythrop  and  Sir  Telegraph 
were  both  cured  at  college  of  their  love  for  learning.  Des- 
mond describes  the  university  system  as  a  "deep-laid  con- 
spiracy against  the  human  understanding,  *  *  *  a 
ridiculous  and  mischievous  farce."  But  Dr.  Folliott  re- 
fused to  succumb.  Alluding  to  some  one  who  cannot  quote 
Greek,  he  adds, —  2 

"But  I  think  he  must  have  finished  his  education  at  some 
very  rigid  college,  where  a  quotation,  or  any  other  overt  act 
showing  acquaintance  with  classical  literature,  was  visited  with 
a  severe  penalty.  For  my  part,  I  made  it  my  boast  that  I  was 
not  to  be  so  subdued.  I  could  not  be  abated  of  a  single  quota- 
tion by  all  the  bumpers  in  which  I  was  fined." 

The  same  critic  says  elsewhere  of  the  curriculum:3 

"Everything  for  everybody,  science  for  all,  schools  for  all, 
rhetoric  for  all,  law  for  all,  physic  for  all,  words  for  all,  and  sense 
for  none." 

Pelham  testifies  that  at  Eton  he  was  never  taught  a  syl- 
lable of  English  literature,  laws,  or  history;  and  was 
laughed  at  for  reading  Pope  out  of  school.  On  his  gradua- 
tion from  Cambridge,  a  place  that  "reeked  with  vulgar- 

1  Cf.  the  beginning  of  same  chapter  for  the  school  system  generally. 
8  Crochet  Castle,  115. 
« Ibid.,  32. 


INSTITUTIONS  221 

ity,"  he  is  congratulated  by  his  tutor  for  having  been  passa- 
bly decent.    Whereupon  he  observes, —  1 

"Thus  closed  my  academical  career.  He  who  does  not  allow 
that  it  passed  creditably  to  my  teachers,  profitably  to  myself, 
and  beneficially  to  the  world,  is  a  narrow-minded  and  illiterate 
man,  who  knows  nothing  of  the  advantages  of  modern  educa- 
tion." 

Trollope  in  The  Bertrams,  and  Kingsley  in  Yeast  and 
Alton  Locke,  have  a  few  words  for  the  subject,  but  add  no 
new  idea,  except  that  Alton  voices  the  disgust  of  the  stu- 
dents themselves  with  their  Alma  Mater.  It  is  this  same 
young  neophyte  who  is  advised  by  Dean  Winnstay  to  go 
to  some  such  college  as  St.  Mark's,  which  "might,  by  its 
strong  Church  principles,  give  the  best  antidote  to  any 
little  remaining  taint  of  sans-culottism." 

In  Butler's  Erewhonian  Colleges  of  Unreason  the  lead- 
ing subject  is  Hypo  the  tics,  and  the  most  honored  Chairs 
are  those  of  Inconsistency  and  Evasion,  both  required 
courses.  Genius  and  originality  are  resolutely  discour- 
aged, it  being  a  man's  business  "  to  think  as  his  neighbors 
do,  for  Heaven  help  him  if  he  thinks  good  what  they  count 
bad."  These  Erewhonian  professors,  by  the  way,  might 
have  adduced  as  evidence  the  well-known,  horrified  ex- 
clamation of  Mary  Shelley  at  the  suggestion  that  her  son 

lPelham,  13.  Cf.  his  Kenelm  Chillingly  for  a  discussion  between  Uncle  John, 
the  idealistic  vicar  and  Mivers,  the  utilitarian  man  of  the  world,  as  to  educa- 
tional values.  The  latter  believes  the  parson's  regime  would  produce  "either 
a  pigeon  or  a  ring-dove,  a  credulous  booby  or  a  sentimental  milk-sop."  The 
former  makes  a  thoughtful  distinction  between  the  public  school,  which  ripens 
talent  but  stifles  genius,  and  the  private,  which  is  too  enervating,  making  of 
the  boys  either  prigs  or  sissies.  It  is  Mivers  who  advocates  adapting  the  style 
of  education  to  the  disposition  of  the  individual;  and  insuring  development  by 
putting  the  youthful  mind  in  contact  with  the  most  original  and  innovating 
thinkers  of  the  day. 


222       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

be  sent  where  he  would  be  taught  to  think  for  himself.  By 
refusing  to  "  think  like  other  people/'  a  man  may  become  a 
poet  and  even  a  beautiful,  ineffectual  angel,  but  he  cannot 
lead  a  comfortable  nor  a  really  effectual  life.  The  prob- 
lem as  to  who  may  safely  be  intrusted  to  lead  public  opin- 
ion, and  who  are  safest  as  followers,  is  an  intricate  one, 
but  it  is  certainly  true  that  a  sane  and  modest  agnosticism 
is  not  necessarily  synonymous  with  "the  art  of  sitting 
gracefully  on  a  fence,"  which  Butler  concludes  was  brought 
to  its  greatest  perfection  in  the  Colleges  of  Unreason. 

On  the  subjects  of  Literature  and  the  Press  too  much  has 
been  said  to  be  ignored,  but  not  much  of  any  great  conse- 
quence. Trollope  took  Journalism  as  a  satiric  province, 
with  some  little  aid  from  Meredith.  He  also  takes  a  shot, 
not  too  well  aimed,  at  the  current  humanitarian  fiction 
which  purposes  to  set  the  world  right  in  shilling  num- 
bers. He  adds, —  1 

"Of  all  such  reformers,  Mr.  Sentiment  is  the  most  powerful. 
It  is  incredible  the  number  of  evil  practices  he  has  put  down.  It 
is  to  be  feared  he  will  soon  lack  subjects,  and  that  when  he  has 
made  the  working  classes  comfortable,  and  got  bitter  beer  put 
into  proper  sized  pint  bottles,  there  will  be  nothing  left  for  him 
to  do.  Mr.  Sentiment  is  certainly  a  very  powerful  man,  and  per- 
haps not  the  less  so  that  his  good  poor  people  are  so  very  good ; 
his  hard  rich  people  so  very  hard,  and  the  genuinely  honest  so 
very  honest.  *  *  *  Divine  peeresses  are  no  longer  interest- 
ing, though  possessed  of  every  virtue;  but  a  pattern  peasant  or 
an  immaculate  manufacturing  hero  may  talk  as  much  twaddle 
as  one  of  Mrs.  Ratcliffe's  heroines,  and  still  be  listened  to." 

A  favorite  theme,  especially  among  the  earlier  writers, 
is  the  pose  of  pessimism,  alien  to  the  self-satisfied  opti- 

1  The  Warden,  151.  This  is  really  more  unjust  to  Dickens  than  the  flings 
at  Dr.  Pessimist  Anti-cant  are  to  Carlyle.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the 
very  measure  meted  to  Lytton  by  Dickens  is  measured  to  him  by  Trollope. 


INSTITUTIONS  223 

mistic  spirit  which  prevailed  with  little  opposition — except 
from  James  Thompson  and  Matthew  Arnold — from  By- 
ron to  Hardy. 

The  Honorable  Mr.  Listless  finds  the  volumes  of  mod- 
ern literature  "very  consolatory  and  congenial"  to  his 
feelings: l 

"There  is,  as  it  were,  a  delightful  north-east  wind,  an  intel- 
lectual blight  breathing  through  them;  a  delicious  misanthropy 
and  discontent,  that  demonstrates  the  nullity  of  virtue  and  en- 
ergy, and  puts  me  in  good  humour  with  myself  and  sofa." 

Pelham  perceives — 2 

"*  *  *  an  unaccountable  prepossession  among  all  persons, 
to  imagine  that  whatever  seems  gloomy  must  be  profound, 
and  whatever  is  cheerful  must  be  shallow.  They  have  put  poor 
Philosophy  into  deep  mourning,  and  given  her  a  coffin  for  a  writ- 
ing desk,  and  a  skull  for  an  inkstand." 

Ganymede  anticipates  that  Apollo's  new  poem  will  be 
very  popular,  for  "  it  is  all  about  moonlight  and  the  misery 
of  existence."  3 

It  is  in  Meredith  that  we  find  the  greatest  point  and 
depth  in  literary  criticism,  as  in  most  other  things.  Under 
cover  of  apology  for  his  own  method  of  psychological  anal- 
ysis, he  manages  to  convey  his  impression  of  those  who 
tell  and  who  love  the  story  for  the  story's  sake.  He  can- 
not avoid,  he  explains,  the  slow  start  and  detailed  exposi- 
tion in  which  he  unfolds  the  situation,  and  adds: 4 

"This  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  when  you  are  set  astride  the 
enchanted  horse  of  the  Tale,  which  leaves  the  man's  mind  at 
home  while  he  performs  the  deeds  befitting  him:  he  can  indeed 

1  Nightmare  Abbey,  50.  *  Ixion,  282. 

2  Pelham,  301.  *  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  10. 


224       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

be  rapid.  Whether  more  active,  is  a  question  asking  for  your 
notions  of  the  governing  element  in  the  composition  of  man,  and 
of  his  present  business  here.  *  *  *  All  ill-fortuned  min- 
strel who  has  by  fateful  direction  been  brought  to  see  with  dis- 
tinctness that  man  is  not  as  much  comprised  in  external  features 
as  the  monkey,  will  be  devoted  to  the  task  of  the  fuller  por- 
traiture." 

It  is  Meredith  also  who  says  the  last  word  on  the  Eng- 
lish, as  English.  They  are  indeed  the  real  objects  under 
all  these  disguises  of  their  activities,  but  they  are  not  often 
synthesized  and  called  by  name.  Yet — 1 

"  An  actually  satiric  man  in  an  English  circle,  that  does  not 
resort  to  the  fist  for  a  reply  to  him,  may  almost  satiate  the 
excessive  fury  roused  in  his  mind  by  an  illogical  people  of  a 
provocative  prosperity,  *  *  *  They  give  him  so  many 
opportunities." 

He  seizes  one  of  them  by  symbolizing  England  in  the 
Duvidney  sisters;  composed  of  such,  it  becomes —  2 

"*  *  *  a  vast  body  of  passives  and  negatives,  living  by 
precept,  according  to  rules  of  precedent,  and  supposing  them- 
selves to  be  righteously  guided  because  of  their  continuing  un- 
disturbed. *  *  *  mixed  with  an  ancient  Hebrew  fear  of 
offense  to  an  inscrutable  Lord,  eccentrically  appeasable  through 
the  dreary  iteration  of  the  litany  of  sinfulness.  *  *  *  Sat- 
irists in  their  fervours  might  be  near  it  to  grasp  it,  if  they  could 
be  moved  to  moral  distinctness,  mental  intention,  with  a  prefer- 
ence of  strong  plain  speech  over  the  crack  of  their  whips." 

He  had  already  decided,  in  Beaucbamp's  Career,  that 
"It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  a  domination  of  the  In- 
tellect in  England  would  at  once  and  entirely  alter  the 
face  of  the  country."  Reade  agrees  with  this  opinion, 

1  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  72.  *  Ibid.,  228. 


INSTITUTIONS  225 

only  he  says  bluntly  that  one  is  "  an  ass  *  *  *  to  have 
brains  in  a  country  where  brains  are  a  crime."  This  na- 
tional stupidity  and  sentimentality  are  made  impregnable 
by  national  complacency.  Lytton  remarks  on  the  ego- 
tistic nature  of  British  patriotism: l 

"The  vanity  of  the  Frenchman  consists  (as  I  have  somewhere 
read)  in  belonging  to  so  great  a  country;  but  the  vanity  of  the 
Englishman  exults  in  the  thought  that  so  great  a  country  belongs 
to  himself." 

These  criticisms  are  all  from  within.  Disraeli  is  able  to 
contribute  one  from  without.  He  describes  the  British 
through  his  Jewish  Besso: 2 

"There  is  not  a  race  so  proud,  so  wilful,  so  rash  and  so  obsti- 
nate. They  live  in  a  misty  clime,  on  raw  meats,  and  wines  of 
fire.  They  laugh  at  their  fathers,  and  never  say  a  prayer.  They 
pass  their  days  in  the  chase,  gaming,  and  all  violent  courses. 
They  have  all  the  power  of  the  State,  and  all  its  wealth;  and 
when  they  can  wring  no  more  from  their  peasants,  they  plunder 
the  kings  of  India." 

Nevertheless  they  all,  even  the  Hebrew  within  their  par- 
liamentary halls,  believed  in  the  English  character  and  the 
civilization  it  was  blunderingly  working  out.  The  most 
incorrigible  satirist  of  that  civilization  was  Peacock  (who 
often,  we  suspect,  gets  carried  away  by  his  own  eloquence), 
and  in  his  fervent  summary  of  almost  all  our  public  fail- 
ures, he  hints  in  the  very  phrasing,  although  ironically, 

1  England  and  the  English,  21. 

2  Tancred,  242.   It  is  a  race  also  that  "  having  little  imagination,  takes  refuge 
in  reason,  and  carefully  locks  the  door  when  the  steed  is  stolen."  379.      More- 
over, the  Oriental  says  of  the  European  what  the  latter  applied  in  the  course  of 
time  to  the  American, — he  "talks  of  progress,  because,  by  an  ingenious  appli- 
cation of  some  scientific  acquirements,  he  has  established  a  society. which  has 
mistaken  comfort  for  civilization."  227. 


226        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

at  the  possibility  of  these  failures  being  transformed  into 
successes.  Sir  Telegraph  Paxarett,  accused  of  extrav- 
agance, retorts  with  a  conditional  promise  of  retrench- 
ment: l 

"When  ecclesiastical  dignitaries  imitate  the  temperance  and 
humility  of  the  founder  of  that  religion  by  which  they  feed  and 
flourish;  when  the  man  in  place  acts  on  the  principles  which 
he  professed  while  he  was  out;  when  borough  electors  will  not 
sell  their  suffrage,  nor  their  representatives  their  votes;  when  po- 
ets are  not  to  be  hired  for  the  maintenance  of  any  opinion;  when 
learned  divines  can  afford  to  have  a  conscience;  when  universi- 
ties are  not  one  hundred  years  in  knowledge  behind  all  the  rest 
of  the  world;  when  young  ladies  speak  as  they  think,  and  when 
those  who  shudder  at  a  tale  of  the  horror  of  slavery  will  de- 
prive their  own  palates  of  a  sweet  taste,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
tributing all  in  their  power  to  its  extinction: — why  then,  For- 
ester, I  will  lay  down  my  barouche." 

Satire,  being  frankly  a  destructive  process,  makes  no  pre- 
tense of  supplementing  its  iconoclasm  by  reconstruction. 
But  such  implication  of  reform  as  may  lurk  in  the  criticism 
that  paves  the  way  may  be  looked  for  more  assuredly  than 
elsewhere  in  attacks  on  institutions.  Such  criticism  is 
neither  lowered  by  the  recrimination  that  puts  satire  of 
individuals  below  the  normal  satiric  level,  nor  elevated  by 
the  artistic  detachment  that  lifts  satire  of  human  nature 
above  it.  For  it  is  not  in  the  too  small  lump  of  the  solitary 
specimen  that  the  leaven  can  best  work,  nor  yet  in  the  too 
large  mass  of  the  whole  human  race.  It  is  in  the  unit  be- 
tween these  two  extremes,  the  body  politic  or  social  or  re- 
ligious or  educational,  that  it  may  best  perform  its  fer- 
menting ministrations. 

Even  so,  however,  the  idealism  of  the  Victorian  novel- 

lMelincourt,  II,  47. 


INSTITUTIONS  227 

ists  did  not  take  this  positive  turn.  English  genius  has  on 
the  whole  contributed  its  share  to  the  anthology  of  Utopian 
vision,  even  to  the  furnishing  of  the  name,  but  the  nine- 
teenth century,  preeminent  in  criticism  and  speculation, 
venting  more  talk  about  it  than  all  the  other  centuries 
put  together,  has  to  its  credit  in  this  line,  aside  from 
Erewbon  and  The  Coming  Race,  only  Morris's  News  from 
Nowhere,  and  that  is  too  na'ive  in  its  simplification  of 
human  nature  and  too  absurd  in  its  glorification  of  medie- 
valism to  be  taken  seriously.  More  carefully  thought  out 
as  an  Ideal  State,  more  searching  in  its  seriousness,  more 
pertinent  in  its  satire,  and  more  constructive  in  its  con- 
clusion, than  any  of  these,  is  the  American  product,  Bel- 
lamy's Looking  Backward. 

The  Victorians  did  their  looking  backward  literally  from 
their  own  present  instead  of  an  imagined  future.  And 
since  in  so  doing  they  did  for  the  most  part  but  cast  their 
eye  on  prospects  drear,  and  since  they  shrank  from  a  fu- 
ture they  could  only  guess  and  fear  if  they  thought  about 
it  at  all,  they  wisely  and  practically  spent  themselves  on 
the  present.  And  because  of  this  acceptance  of  the  present 
and  all  its  institutions  as  a  whole,  they  could  couch  their 
lances  only  against  this  or  that  detail,  not  against  the  chal- 
lenge of  civilization  itself. 

The  following  instances  show  a  characteristic  difference 
in  their  resemblance.  "  In  England,  poverty  is  a  crime," 
exclaims  Lytton  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  observa- 
tion is  ironic,  the  tone  scornful,  and  the  object  of  the  ironic 
scorn  is  the  snobbishness  of  those  who  from  the  heights 
of  wealth  look  down  upon  and  despise  the  poor.  The  re- 
buke is  intended  for  the  alien  attitude  toward  that  portion 
of  society  which  we  may  expect,  according  to  Biblical  au- 
thority, always  to  have  with  us.  Poverty  itself  is  a  mys- 


228        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

terious  dispensation,  having  indeed  many  discernible  com- 
pensations, and  ever  mitigable  by  applied  morality. 

"Poverty  is  the  only  crime,"  echoes  Bernard  Shaw  in  the 
twentieth  century.  -  His  assertion  is  meant  literally,  the 
tone  is  decisive,  and  the  indictment  is  lodged  against  so- 
ciety at  large  for  being  so  stupid  and  inefficient  as  to  per- 
mit such  a  canker,  pernicious  but  curable,  to  infect  its 
body. 

To  remedy  the  supercilious  attitude  toward  the  poor  is 
still  to  leave  poverty  intact  and  in  permanent  possession 
of  the  field.  To  remedy  the  criminal  carelessness  which 
tolerates  its  presence  is  to  abolish  the  thing  itself. 

But  even  if  the  twentieth  century  has  stated  the  prob- 
lem, it  has  not  yet  solved  it.  And  while  neither  the  state- 
ment nor  the  solution  of  the  nineteenth  is  reckoned  ade- 
quate to-day,  still  the  Victorians  did  accomplish  something 
if  not  much,  and  all  we  can  say  for  ourselves  is  that  we 
have  not  accomplished  much,  if  something.  Moreover,  to 
flatter  ourselves  that  we  are  the  first  to  discover  the  social 
onus  of  poverty  and  other  ills,  is  to  ignore  the  contribu- 
tions not  only  of  the  novelists  but  of  Carlyle,  Ruskin, 
Morris,  and  Henry  George.  When  the  remaining  four- 
fifths  of  our  century  shall  have  been  added  to  history,  we 
may  perhaps  applaud  ourselves.  At  present  it  will  do  us 
no  harm  to  render  unto  Victorianism  the  acknowledgment 
that  is  its  due. 


CHAPTER  III 

TYPES 

For  that  form  of  satire  which  deals  with  actual  indi- 
viduals, photographed  or  caricatured,  the  designation  per- 
sonal is  sufficiently  descriptive.  But  for  that  which  deals 
with  fictitious  individuals,  wherein  the  models  that  sat 
for  the  portraits  have  passed  through  the  imaginative  pro- 
cess that  makes  their  portraiture  a  work  of  art,  there  is  no 
satisfactory  name.  Typical,  in  distinction  from  individual 
and  institutional,  is  tolerably  expressive,  but  a  term  to  be 
apologized  for.  The  school  of  art  known  as  realistic,  which 
was  theoretically  adopted  by  the  nineteenth  century,  re- 
pudiates creations  that  are  "mere  types,"  and  claims  for 
itself  the  achievement  of  true  individuals.  The  sign  of 
individuality  is  a  discordant  complexity.  Every  man  may 
have  his  humour  but  he  is  not  always  in  it.  He  may  be 
ruled  by  a  master  passion,  but  the  rule  is  not  a  monopolis- 
tic autocracy.  Its  supremacy  is  constantly  disputed  and 
threatened  by  mob  rebellion.  Civil  war  is  the  usual  re- 
gime, and  the  attainment  of  a  stabilized  government  is 
rare. 

Tamburlaine,  Volpone,  Othello,  Tartuffe,  Blifil,  are  not 
untrue,  but  they  are  only  partial  truths.  We  see  much, 
undoubtedly  the  most  significant  and  dominating  traits, 
but  we  cannot  see  all  when  the  searchlight  is  concentrated 
on  a  single  spot.  Agamemnon,  Hamlet,  Tom  Jones,  Jaf- 
feir,  swayed,  perplexed,  inconsistent,  at  once  infinite  and 
abject,  are  more  nearly  full  length  and  complete  drawings. 

229 


230       SATIRE     IN    THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Milton's  Satan  becomes  humanized  when,  entering  the 
human  abode,  he  grows  hesitant,  half  regretful,  half  eager, 
a  prey  to  conflicting  emotions  and  cross  purposes. 

Yet  those  desirable  factors  of  art,  unity  and  emphasis, 
must  be  secured,  and  they  can  be  secured  only  by  throw- 
ing the  emphasis  on  some  one  feature,  thus  giving  unity 
to  the  character.  In  the  field  of  satire  a  classification 
based  on  these  qualities  is  the  more  easily  made  in  that 
any  given  character  is  usually  satirized  for  some  particu- 
lar trait,  although  the  problem  does  not  end  there.  We 
may  construct  encampments  for  our  army  of  characters — 
and  in  Victorian  fiction  they  come  in  battalions — and  we 
may  label  them;  but  we  shall  find  it  less  simple  to  assign 
the  companies  to  their  own  barracks  and  keep  them  there. 

The  Father  of  the  Marshalsea  is  a  snob.  He  is  also 
hypocritical  and  foolish.  Moreover,  he  is  a  sentimentalist 
and  an  epicurean.  Withal  he  is  not  villainous,  but  more 
pathetic  than  execrable.  He  has  no  apparent  kinship 
with  the  Countess  de  Saldar,  yet  she  also  may  be  de- 
scribed in  the  above  terms.  The  enumeration  would  not 
show  the  difference.  Thus  not  only  does  each  real  char- 
acter refuse  to  be  known  by  one  name  and  one  only,  but 
the  congregation  assembled  under  any  one  denomination 
shows  such  diversity  as  to  make  the  category  itself  ques- 
tionable. Mrs.  Mackensie  and  Mrs.  Clennam,  Mr.  Dom- 
bey  and  Bertie  Stanhope,  Tom  Tulliver  and  Sir  Wil- 
loughby  Patterne,are  all  egoists;  but  they  would  find  little 
congeniality  in  their  mutual  egoism. 

All  that  can  be  done  is  to  indicate  the  range  and  the  con- 
centration of  the  main  types.  These  types  will  of  course 
represent  those  elements  in  human  character  which  seem 
to  the  satirist  such  deflections  from  an  ideal  as  are  amen- 
able to  comic  exposure  and  perhaps  correction.  It  does 


TYPES  231 

not  seem  possible  to  reduce  them  to  fewer  than  seven  or 
eight  heads,  as  follows:  hypocrisy,  folly,  snobbishness,  sen- 
timentality, egoism,  fanaticism,  and  vulgarity. 

These  various  fields  have  their  specialists.  Hypocrisy, 
including  sycophancy  and  deliberate  imposture  of  any 
kind,  belongs  to  Dickens,  with  Thackeray,  Trollope,  and 
others  following  not  far  behind.  He  leads  also  in  depiction 
of  folly  and  incompetence,  though  these  prevail  widely  in 
Victorian  fiction;  and  Meredith  excels  in  portrayal  of 
mental  incapacity  and  fallacy  in  reasoning.  It  is  the 
latter  who  comes  to  the  front  with  sentimentality  and 
egoism,  having  but  few  predecessors.  Thackeray  handles 
snobbishness  in  all  its  ramifications  of  worldliness  and 
elegant  ennui.  But  although  he  contributes  the  name, 
the  thing  exists  on  the  pages  of  Lytton,  Disraeli,  Trollope, 
and  Dickens.  Fanaticism,  bigotry,  all  sorts  of  fads,  make 
another  common  ground  for  Peacock  and  Butler,  and  crop 
up  in  Reade,  Bronte,  and  Kingsley.  Coarse  vulgarity  is 
the  rarest  of  all,  the  Age  of  Propriety  refusing  to  trans- 
plant this  weed  from  life  to  literature,  but  it  is  admitted 
by  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Reade,  and  Trollope. 

Since  satire  is  usually  directed  against  the  special  thing 
in  which  the  satirist  feels  superior,  we  may  deduce  the 
favorite  Victorian  virtues  to  have  been  sincerity,  wisdom, 
rationality,  refinement,  and  a  sense  of  proportion;  a  large 
order,  but  the  nineteenth  century  would  scorn  a  smaller. 

Dickens  did  not  invent  the  hypocrite,  nor  did  he  sup- 
ply anything  new  to  the  investigation  of  the  nature  of  this 
most  subtile  of  all  the  beasts  of  the  field.  He  himself  had 
not  the  subtlety  to  search  out  causes  and  discover  possi- 
ble extenuations  and  values  in  a  thing  he  simply  and  flatly 
abhorred  and  saw  no  excuse  for.  What  he  does  furnish  is 
an  immense  amount  of  data,  with  many  variations,  show- 


2J2        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

ing  in  extenso  this  aspect  of  human  nature.  At  least  three 
dozen  of  his  three  hundred  characters  exhibit  the  seamy 
side  of  scheming  and  deceit.  From  Pickwick^  wherein 
Mr.  Winkle,  unfrocked  as  to  skates  and  branded  as  a  hum- 
bug and  an  impostor  because  he  assumed  an  accomplish- 
ment when  he  had  it  not,  to  Edwin  Droody  harboring 
Luke  Honeythunder,  professional  philanthropist,  who, 
"Always  something  in  the  nature  of  a  Boil  upon  the  face 
of  society,  *  *  *  expanded  into  an  inflammatory  Wen 
in  Minor  Canon  Corner,"  no  volume  is  entirely  free  from 
the  trail  of  the  serpent. 

Most  of  the  humbugs  and  impostors  are,  like  the  phi- 
lanthropist, professional.  Dodson  and  Fogg,  Sergeant 
Buzfuz,  Mr.  Tulkinghorn,  turn  their  intrigues  into  legal 
channels;  Mr.  Bumble  and  Mrs.  Mann,  into  civic;  Dr. 
Blimber  and  Mrs.  Pipchin,  into  pedagogic.  Mr.  Merdle 
tricks  the  financial  world,  though  Mr.  Casby,  operating 
on  a  smaller  scale,  makes  himself  much  more  of  a  fraud. 
Mr.  Crummies,  Mrs.  Gamp,  Mrs.  Crupp,  in  their  various 
capacities,  abstain  from  giving  their  patrons  value  re- 
ceived. The  Barnacles,  parasites  clinging  to  the  Ship  of 
State,  pose  as  public  servants  and  benefactors. 

It  happens,  however,  that  those  who  confine  their  dis- 
sembling and  pretense  to  private  life  are  of  the  highest 
hypocritical  quality.  Mr.  Mantalini  expertly  bamboozles 
his  wife.  Mrs.  Sparsit  successfully  plays  her  part  for  the 
benefit  of  Mr.  Bounderby.  Mr.  Pumblechook  protests  too 
much  to  little  Pip,  now  grown  up  and  prosperous,  but  car- 
ries it  off  with  an  air.  Mr.  Carker,  who  "hid  himself 
behind  his  sleek,  hushed,  crouching  manner,  and  his  ivory 
smile,"  and  who,  "sly  of  manner,  sharp  of  tooth,  soft  of 
foot,  watchful  of  eye,  oily  of  tongue,  cruel  of  heart,  nice 
of  habit,  sat  with  a  dainty  steadfastness  and  patience  at 


TYPES  233 

his  work,  as  if  he  were  waiting  at  a  mouse's  hole,"  finally 
catches  his  mouse,  though  only  to  be  eluded  again. 

A  perfect  modern  instance  of  the  bubble  pricked  by  the 
ancient  Socratic  method  is  that  of  Mr.  Curdle,  eminent 
dramatic  critic.  He  has  been  talking  big  about  the  Unities 
of  the  Drama.  Nicholas  innocently  asks  what  they  might 
be.  He  is  informed: 1 

"Mr.  Curdle  coughed  and  considered.  'The  unities,  sir/  he 
said,  'are  a  completeness — a  kind  of  universal  dovetailedness 
with  regard  to  place  and  time — a  sort  of  a  general  oneness,  if 
I  may  be  allowed  to  use  so  strong  an  expression.  I  take  those 
to  be  the  dramatic  unities,  so  far  as  I  have  been  enabled  to  be- 
stow attention  upon  them,  and  I  have  read  much  upon  the  sub- 
ject and  thought  much.  I  find,  running  through  the  perform- 
ances of  this  child/  said  Mr.  Curdle,  turning  to  the  Phenomenon, 
'a  unity  of  feeling,  a  breadth,  a  light  and  shade,  a  warmth  of 
colouring,  a  tone,  a  harmony,  a  glow,  an  artistical  develop- 
ment of  original  conceptions,  which  I  look  for,  in  vain,  among 
older  performers.  I  don't  know  whether  I  make  myself 
understood?' 

"'Perfectly,'  replied  Nicholas. 

"'Just  so/  said  Mr.  Curdle,  pulling  up  his  neckcloth.  'That 
is  my  definition  of  the  unities  of  the  drama.'" 

The  great  trio,  Pecksniff,  Bagstock,  and  Heep,  occur 
in  the  three  successive  novels  of  the  six  years  ending 
with  the  mid-century.  Pecksniff  is  the  most  gratuitous 
offender,  for  he  encases  himself  in  piety  and  benevolence, 
and  inserts  his  falseness  into  every  word,  every  deed,  every 
relation  of  life.  Heep's  specious  humility  is  as  unrelaxed 
and  vigilant,  but  it  is  more  of  a  means  to  an  end  and  not, 
like  Pecksniff's,  an  end  in  itself.  He  fawns  and  flatters 
and  cheats  for  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  such  policies. 

1  Nicholas  Nickleby,  I,  415. 


234       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Thus  slippery  are  the  steps  of  Uriah's  ladder.  He  has, 
moreover,  a  word  of  self-defense  which  forces  his  educa- 
tional training  to  share  the  responsibility.  When  he  is  re- 
minded by  Copperfield  that  greed  and  cunning  always 
overreach  themselves,  he  retorts  by  implicating  the  school 
where  he  was  taught  "  from  nine  o'clock  to  eleven,  that  la- 
bour was  a  curse;  and  from  eleven  o'clock  to  one,  that  it 
was  a  blessing  and  a  cheerfulness  and  a  dignity,"  and  so  on. 
Major  Bagstock  resembles  Heep  in  being  servile  in  manner 
instead  of  pompously  patronizing;  but  while  Chesterton 
may  be  right  in  calling  him  a  more  subtle  hypocrite  than 
Pecksniff,1  it  is  also  true  that  the  Major's  hypocrisy  is  not 
quite  his  whole  existence,  as  it  is  of  both  Pecksniff  and 
Heep.  He  is  at  least  a  gourmand  in  addition,  if  nothing 
more. 

Before  Dickens,  in  our  period,  the  only  character  to  ex- 
emplify this  trait,  aside  from  Peacock's  Fea themes t,  is 
Lytton's  Robert  Beaufort,  in  Nigbt  and  Morning.  The 
author  remarks  in  a  later  preface  that  this  character  might 
be  rated  as  a  forerunner  to  Pecksniff;  but  he  is  in  reality 
more  of  the  Blifil  type,  his  brother  Philip  acting  as  his  Tom 
Jones. 

Lytton,  however,  is  inclined  to  discuss  the  subject  by  the 
way.  In  one  of  his  earlier  novels  he  says, —  3 

"Honesty — patriotism — religion — these  have  had  their  hyp- 
ocrites for  life; — but  passion  permits  only  momentary  dis- 
semblers." 

In  a  later  one  he  analyzes  a  dubious  citizen : 3 

1  In  his  Dickens,  120.  he  adds,  "Dickens  does  mean  it  as  a  deliberate  light  on 
Mr.  Dombey's  character  that  he  basks  with  a  fatuous  calm  in  the  blazing  sun 
of  Major  Bagstock's  tropical  and  offensive  flattery." 

2  Godolphin,    198. 
8  Maltraversy  155. 


TYPES  235 

"But  our  banker  was  really  a  charitable  man,  and  a  benevo- 
lent man,  and  a  sincere  believer.  How,  then,  was  he  a  hypo- 
crite? Simply  because  he  professed  to  be  far  more  charitable, 
more  benevolent,  and  more  pious  than  he  really  was.  His  reputa- 
tion had  now  arrived  to  that  degree  of  immaculate  polish  that 
the  smallest  breath,  which  would  not  have  tarnished  the 
character  of  another  man,  would  have  fixed  an  indelible  stain 
upon  his." 

The  same  might  be  said  of  another  banker,  the  respectable 
Bulstrode,  whom  George  Eliot  presents  with  no  satire 
and  an  almost  pitiful  sympathy. 

The  wealthy  plebeian  Avenel  is  embarrassed  by  the  in- 
opportune arrival  of  his  rustic  sister  in  the  presence  of  his 
aristocratic  guests.  By  a  brilliant  counter-stroke  of  a  can- 
did and  courageous  confession,  he  stems  the  tide  and  wins 
the  day.  But  in  private  he  is  very  severe  with  the  poor 
culprit,  and  then  admits  to  himself,  "I'm  a  cursed  hum- 
bug, *  *  *  but  the  world  is  such  a  humbug!"  1 

The  only  Pecksniffian  hypocrite  outside  of  Dickens  is 
the  Reverend  Brocklehurst,  whom  Jane  Eyre  describes 
as  lecturing  to  the  half  starved  and  shivering  girls  at  the 
school  of  which  he  was  trustee,  on  the  beauty  of  asceticism 
and  the  holiness  of  economy,  while  his  wife  and  daughters 
sit  in  state  on  the  platform,  curled,  bejewelled,  opulent  in 
plumes  and  velvet. 

The  cant  and  manoeuvering  of  the  Thackeray  and 
Trollope  hypocrites  are  necessary  as  first  aid  to  the  am- 
bitious. By  means  of  them  Becky  Sharp  achieves  a  hus- 
band, Mrs.  Mackenzie  a  son-in-law,  Moffit  and  Crosbie 
a  patrician  father-in-law,  and  Lady  Carbury  a  literary  rep- 
utation. Mr.  Slope  and  the  Pateroffs  fail  but  no  less  bear 
up  beneath  their  unsuccess.  Melmotte,  another  Merdle, 

1  My  Novel,  353. 


236       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

succumbs,  like  him,  forced  to  realize  that  deceit  may  strike 
one  with  a  tragic  rebound. 

Jermyn  and  Grandcourt,  the  latter  especially,  indulge  in 
deceit  out  of  pure  selfishness,  but  in  neither  of  them  does 
George  Eliot  consider  hypocrisy  a  matter  for  even  satirical 
mirth.  In  lighter  vein  she  does  indeed  show  up  the  poseur 
in  low  life.  Mr.  Dowlas,  oracle  of  ¥he  Rainbow,  laying 
down  the  law  about  ghosts,  is  too  frightened  by  the  appari- 
tion of  Silas  Marner  to  speak.  Having  recovered  and  feel- 
ing "  that  he  had  not  been  quite  on  a  par  with  himself  and 
the  occasion,"  he  intrigues  to  get  appointed  as  deputy 
constable,  and  consents  to  serve,  after  "duly  rehearsing  a 
small  ceremony  known  in  high  ecclesiastical  life  as  nolo 
episcopari"  Mr.  Scales,  discoursing  largely  on  excom- 
munication, is  another  caught  in  the  Socratic  trap  by  being 
asked  for  definition  of  the  term.  He  is  no  less  ready  than 
Mr.  Curdle,  though  more  sententious: 1 

"Well,  it's  a  law  term — speaking  in  a  figurative  sort  of  way — 
meaning  that  a  Radical  was  no  gentleman." 

It  is  George  Eliot  who  sees  the  necessity  of  the  mask 
that  most  are  content  simply  to  tear  away  or  disfigure. 
Although  she  speaks  through  a  worldly  wise  character, 
she  sounds  no  note  of  dissent:  2 

"Til  tell  you  what,  Dan/  said  Sir  Hugo,  'a  man  who  sets  his 
face  against  every  sort  of  humbug  is  simply  a  three-cornered 

1  Felix  Holt.  I,  152.  Kingsley  depicts  the  same  thing  in  higher  life,  and  takes 
it  more  seriously:  Lancelot  is  contemptuous  over  the  vicar, — "He  told  me, 
hearing  me  quote  Schiller,  to  beware  of  the  Germans,  for  they  were  all  Pan- 
theists at  heart.  I  asked  him  whether  he  included  Lange  and  Bunsen,  and  it 
appeared  that  he  had  never  read  a  German  book  in  his  life.  He  then  flew  furi- 
ously at  Mr.  Carlyle,  and  I  found  that  all  he  knew  of  him  was  from  a  certain 
review  in  the  Quarterly."  Yeast,  63. 

1  Daniel  Dcronda,  II,  162. 


TYPES  237 

impracticable  fellow.  There's  a  bad  style  of  humbug,  but  there 
is  also  a  good  style — one  that  oils  the  wheels  and  makes  prog- 
ress possible/" 

This  is  recognized  also  by  Lytton,  who  quotes  "an 
anonymous  writer  of  1722:"* 

"Deceit  is  the  strong  but  subtile  chain  which  runs  through 
all  the  members  of  a  society,  and  links  them  together;  trick  or 
be  tricked,  is  the  alternative;  'tis  the  way  of  the  world,  and  with- 
out it  intercourse  would  drop." 

Trollope  subscribes  with  qualification,  by  having  the 
archdeacon  say,  on  the  death  of  Mrs.  Proudie, —  2 

"The  proverb  of  De  Mortuis  is  founded  on  humbug.  Hun- 
bug  out  of  doors  is  necessary." 

At  the  extreme  opposite  from  the  hypocrites,  shrewd, 
knowing,  wise  at  least  in  their  own  conceit,  stand  the  in- 
competent, victims  of  folly;  satirized  not  for  ignorance 
but  for  bland  unconsciousness  of  it,  usually  accompanied 
by  a  hallucination  of  efficiency.  As  the  hypocrites  shade 
off  into  villains,  to  be  rebuked  without  humor,  such  as 
Jasper  Losely,  Randal  Leslie,  Bill  Sykes,  Sedgett,  so  the 
fools  merge  into  the  artless,  to  be  smiled  at  without  re- 
buke, as  Colonel  Digby  and  Colonel  Newcome,  Frank 
Hazeldean,  the  Vardens,  Tom  Pinch,  Captain  Cuttle,  and 
"poor,  excommunicated  Miss  Tox,  who,  if  she  were  a 
fawner  and  a  toad-eater,  was  at  least  an  honest  and  a  con- 
stant one." 

It  is  Dickens  again  who  contributes  the  most  data  to  this 
study,  and  particularly  to  the  genus,  Silly  Dame.  Here 
his  amusement  over  mere  fatuous  complacency  becomes 
warmed  into  scorn  when  that  stupidity  affects  the  home 

1  Maltr overs,  261.  3  Last  Chronicles,  I,  300. 


238        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

she  has  in  charge,  and  lowers  into  a  failure  the  very  thing 
that  it  is  most  important  to  raise  into  success, — such  suc- 
cess not  being  automatic.  Mrs.  Nickleby,  Mrs.  Wilfer, 
Mrs.  Pinching,  like  Jane  Austen's  Mrs.  Rennet  and  Mrs. 
Palmer,  and  Susan  Ferrier's  Lady  Juliana  Douglass,  are 
comparatively  harmless,  and  are  indulged  accordingly. 
But  an  incapacity  that  may  be  picturesque  in  easy  cir- 
cumstances deepens  into  a  grave  misdemeanor  when  joined 
to  a  small  income.  Mrs.  Micawber,  Mrs.  Pocket,  Mrs. 
Pardiggle,  and  especially  Mrs.  Jellyby  are  domestic  pests, 
at  whom  we  are  more  exasperated  than  amused. 

Aside  from  Dickens,  the  only  artist  much  interested  in 
this  stratum  of  human  nature  is  the  one  who  has  given  us 
Mrs.  Tulliver  and  Mrs.  Vincy  and  her  daughter,  but  they 
are  not  real  sources  of  trouble,  except  Rosamund,  and  her 
failure  is  more  spiritual  than  material.  Mrs.  Tulliver,  a 
plaintive,  hopelessly  literal  soul,  is  distressed  over  her  hus- 
band's metaphoric  speech  about  "a  good  wagoner  with  a 
mole  on  his  face."  She  resents  feebly  the  dogmatizing  of 
the  majestic  Mrs.  Glegg,  but  would  never  go  "to  the 
length  of  quarreling  with  her  any  more  than  a  water-fowl 
that  puts  out  its  leg  in  a  deprecating  manner  can  be  said  to 
quarrel  with  a  boy  who  throws  stones."  Under  another 
metaphor  she  is  an  amiable  fish,  which,  "after  running  her 
head  against  the  same  resisting  medium  for  thirteen  years, 
would  go  at  it  again  to-day  with  undiluted  alacrity."  1 

Out  of  her  saddening  experience  Rosamund  did  emerge 
somewhat  wiser,  but  with  none  of  the  higher  wisdom  which 
constitutes  character. 

"She  simply  continued  to  be  mild  in  her  temper,  inflexible  in 
her  judgment,  disposed  to  admonish  her  husband,  and  also 
to  frustrate  him  by  stratagem."  * 

*Millontht  Floss,  III,  113.  *  Middlemarch,  III,  460. 


TYPES  239 

The  other  section  of  this  class  most  fully  recruited  is  made 
up  of  the  foolish  young  men.  It  might  look  as  though 
in  the  novelist's  world  masculine  folly  were  a  malady 
incident  to  youth,  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  feminine 
sort  appeared  late.  For  it  happens  that  Lydia  and  Kitty 
Rennet  have  no  real  successors.  There  are  indeed  plenty 
of  Hetty  Sorrels,  Lucy  Deanes,  Rosa  Mackenzies,  Amelia 
Sedleys,  Dahlia  Flemings;  but  their  innocence  and  pathos 
protect  them  from  satire.  And  the  merely  vapid  and 
vain  school  girl  is  apparently  too  worthless  a  figure  to  be 
given  a  place  on  Victorian  pages.  So  also  seems  the  man 
whose  mental  growth  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  years. 
Mr.  Micawber  may  be  taken  as  the  exception  that  proves 
the  rule.  Sir  Lukin  Dunstane  likewise  shows  that  one  may 
reach  man's  estate  and  flourish  therein  on  a  small  allot- 
ment of  intelligence.  He  makes  his  best  record  in  a  gos- 
sipy little  conversation  with  his  wife,  to  whom  he  is  giving 
an  account  of  the  Dacier-Asper  wedding.  Emmy  had  com- 
mented on  the  eloquence  of  his  report:  1 

"He  murmured  something  in  praise  of  the  institution  of  mar- 
riage— when  celebrated  impressively,  it  seemed. 

1  'Tony  calls  the  social  world  the  "theater  of  appetites,"  as  we 
have  it  at  present/  she  said; '  and  the  world  at  a  wedding  is,  one 
may  reckon,  in  the  second  act  in  the  hungry  tragi-comedy/ 

"Yes,  there's  the  breakfast,'  Sir  Lukin  assented.  Mrs.  Fryar- 
Gunnett  was  much  more  intelligible  to  him;  in  fact,  quite  so,  as 
to  her  speech." 

Folly  is  more  ludicrous  in  the  young  man  than  in  the 
maid,  on  account  of  his  greater  conspicuousness  in  af- 
fairs, and  the  greater  things  expected  of  him, — any  fail- 
ure divulging  the  discrepancy  between  fact  and  fancy 
which  is  the  basis  of  humor.  It  is  also  true  that  he  stands 

1  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  407. 


240       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

a  better  chance  of  having  his  foolishness  shaken  out  of 
him  in  his  more  exposed  and  strenuous  life.  Both  these 
conditions  are  implied  in  a  reflection  made  by  one  of 
Trollope's  characters.  Isabel  Boncassen,  the  frank  Ameri- 
can beauty,  looks  upon  the  young  man  as  a  type: l 

"Young  men  are  pretty  much  the  same  everywhere,  I  guess. 
They  never  have  their  wits  about  them.  They  never  mean  what 
they  say,  because  they  don't  understand  the  use  of  words.  They 
are  generally  half  impudent  and  half  timid.  When  in  love  they 
do  not  at  all  understand  what  has  befallen  them.  What  they 
want  they  try  to  compass  as  a  cow  does  when  it  stands  stretch- 
ing out  its  head  toward  a  stack  of  hay  which  it  cannot  reach. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  young  man,  for  a  man  is  not 
really  a  man  till  he  is  middle-aged.  But  take  them  at  their 
worst,  they  are  a  deal  too  good  for  us,  for  they  become  men  some 
day,  whereas  we  must  only  be  women  to  the  end." 

Dickens  is  again  a  contributor  of  portraits,  though  not  of 
the  best,  and  is  joined  this  time  by  Thackeray,  Trollope, 
and  Meredith. 

Tom  Gradgrind,  product  of  a  system,  and  Edmund 
Sparkler,  product  of  a  lack  of  system,  deserve  mention,  as 
does  Edward  Dorrit,  though  sketched  without  color.  Raw- 
don  Crawley  and  Joseph  Sedley,  no  longer  in  first  flush  of 
youth,  are  consistent  exponents  of  gullible  good  nature 
and  ponderous  vacuity.  But  the  two  prizes  of  undeviat- 
ing  stupidity  are  Sir  Felix  Carbury  and  Algernon  Blan- 
cove. 

Sir  Felix  is  a  spoiled  darling  and  an  excrescence  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  His  accomplishments  are  set  forth  in  a 
description  of  his  state  of  enforced  solitude  consequent 
upon  his  latest  exhibition  of  monumental  inefficiency: 2 

i  The  Duke's  Children,  II,  64. 
J  The  Way  We  Live  Now,  II,  104. 


TYPES  241 

"He  had  so  spent  his  life  hitherto  that  he  did  not  know  how 
to  get  through  a  day  in  which  no  excitement  was  provided  for 
him.  He  never  read.  Thinking  was  altogether  beyond  him. 
And  he  had  never  done  a  day's  work  in  his  life.  He  could  lie  in 
bed.  He  could  eat  and  drink.  He  could  smoke  and  sit  idle.  He 
could  play  cards;  and  could  amuse  himself  with  women, — the 
lower  the  culture  of  the  women,  the  better  the  amusement.  Be- 
yond these  things  the  world  had  nothing  for  him." 

The  complacent  fool  would  be  matter  for  pure  mirth  if 
he  could  live  for  himself  alone;  but  unfortunately  his 
worthless  existence  is  as  adequate  as  any  for  the  promotion 
of  disaster  to  others.  Sir  Felix  is  comparatively  harmless, 
for  his  wreckage  is  reparable,  but  Algernon  is  made  a  deus 
ex  macbina,  and  lets  his  commission  go  by  default.  Those 
who  trusted  him  learn  that  "He  that  sendeth  a  message  by 
the  hand  of  a  fool  cutteth  off  his  own  feet,  and  drinketh 
in  damage."  Or,  as  his  own  author  says: l 

"  But,  if  it  is  permitted  to  the  fool  to  create  entanglements 
and  set  calamity  in  motion,  to  arrest  its  course  is  the  last  thing 
the  Gods  allow  of  his  doing." 

He  is,  however,  a  fool  of  quality  in  that  he  has  a  phi- 
losophy of  life,  and  if  he  were  pent  up  in  his  room,  he  could 
mitigate  tedium  by  reverie.  One  may  indulge  in  antici- 
pations without  possessing  the  faculty  of  foresight.  His 
cousin  "aspired  to  become  Attorney-General  of  these 
realms,"  but  he  had  other  views: 2 

"Civilization  had  tried  him  and  found  him  wanting;  so  he  con- 
demned it.  Moreover,  sitting  now  all  day  at  a  desk,  he  was  civ- 
ilization's drudge.  No  wonder,  then,  that  his  dream  was  of 
prairies,  and  primeval  forests,  and  Australian  wilds.  He  be- 
lieved in  his  heart  that  he  would  be  a  man  new  made  over  there, 

1  Rhoda  Fleming,  372.  *  lbid.y  46. 


242       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

and  always  looked  forward  to  a  savage  life  as  to  a  bath  that 
would  cleanse  him,  so  that  it  did  not  much  matter  his  being  un- 
clean for  the  present." 

The  present  sorry  scheme  of  things  also  suffers  him  to 
wander  the  streets  in  temporary  bankruptcy:  1 

"He  continued  strolling  on,  comparing  the  cramped  misty 
London  aspect  of  things  with  his  visionary  free  dream  of  the 
glorious  prairies,  where  his  other  life  was  :  the  forests,  the  moun- 
tains, the  endless  expanses;  the  horses,  the  flocks,  the  slipshod 
ease  of  language  and  attire;  and  the  grog-shops.  Aha!  There 
could  be  no  mistake  about  him  as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar  out 
there!  Nor  would  Nature  shut  up  her  pocket  and  demand  in- 
numerable things  of  him,  as  civilization  did.  This  he  thought 
in  the  vengefulness  of  his  outraged  mind." 

Meredith  keeps  on  the  trail  of  this  luckless  youth  with 
something  of  the  relentlessness  with  which  Blifil,  Rev- 
erend Collins,  Mrs.  Norris,  and  Mrs.  Proudie  are  pursued; 
but  he  gives  a  good  Meredithian  reason  for  it.  Twice 
he  takes  the  trouble  to  explain  him,  both  times  on  the 
grounds  of  realism: 2 

"So  long  as  the  fool  has  his  being  in  the  world,  he  will  be  a 
part  of  every  history,  nor  can  I  keep  him  from  his  place  in  a  nar- 
rative that  is  made  to  revolve  more  or  less  upon  its  own  wheels. 
*  *  *  for  the  fool  is,  after  his  fashion,  prudent,  and  will 
never,  if  he  can  help  it,  do  himself  thorough  damage,  that  he 
may  learn  by  it  and  be  wiser." 

Again,  an  incident  is  followed  by  comment.  Algernon, 
being  loggy  after  a  dinner  at  the  Club,  fancies  himself  mel- 
ancholy and  profound: 3 

"'I  must  forget  myself.  I'm  under  some  doom.  I  see  it  now. 
Nobody  cares  for  me.  I  don't  know  what  happiness  is.  I  was 

1  Rhoda  Fleming,  108.  2  Ibid.,  307.  s  Ibid,,  337- 


TYPES  243 

born  under  a  bad  star.  My  fate's  written.'  Following  his  youth- 
ful wisdom,  this  wounded  hart  dragged  his  slow  limbs  toward  the 
halls  of  brandy  and  song. 

"One  learns  to  have  compassion  for  fools,  by  studying  them: 
and  the  fool,  though  Nature  is  wise,  is  next  door  to  Nature.  He 
is  naked  in  his  simplicity;  he  can  tell  us  much,  and  suggest  more. 
My  excuse  for  dwelling  upon  him  is,  that  he  holds  the  link  of 
my  story.  Where  fools  are  numerous,  one  of  them  must  be 
prominent  now  and  then  in  a  veracious  narration." 

According  to  the  old  duality  of  satirized  objects, — Vice 
and  Folly,  identified  with  the  deceiver  and  the  deceived, — 
the  two  classes  just  discussed  would  exhaust  the  list.  But 
these  signify  folly  in  its  narrowest  and  most  literal  sense, 
a  plain  lack  of  brains  and  a  general  incapacity.  In  its 
wider  sense  it  includes  misuse  as  well  as  want  of  intelli- 
gence. These  mortals,  as  Puck  discovered,  are  indeed  all 
fools,  at  times  and  on  certain  points.  The  number  may 
not  be  infinite,  but  Lydgate  discovered  sixty-three  kinds; 
and  Barclay  augmented  the  list  to  nearly  one  hundred. 
Perfect  wisdom  would  cast  out  not  only  ignorance,  but 
also  frivolity,  sentimentality,  vanity,  all  sorts  of  false 
standards  and  all  manner  of  fallacies.  Therefore  snobs, 
romanticists,  egoists,  fanatics,  merely  exemplify  folly  in 
its  varieties  and  ramifications. 

The  snob  is  defined  by  his  great  expositor  as  "one  who' 
meanly  admires  mean  things."  A  modern  scholar  calls 
vulgarity  "satisfaction  with  anything  inferior  when  a/ 
superior  is  attainable."  1  These  definitions  together  iri^ 
dicate  why  snobbishness  and  vulgarity  are  allied,  though 
not  identical.  There  is,  however,  this  difference,  that  sat- 

1  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan.  As  to  Thackeray,  the  analysis  made  by  Trollope 
is  very  much  to  the  point, — that  he  mustered  all  his  dislikes  and  animosities 
under  that  caption.  See  the  Biography,  82. 


244       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

isfaction  implies  in  itself  a  passive  acquiescence,  whereas 
admiration  leads  naturally  to  imitation,  and  if  possible,  ap- 
propriation, of  the  thing  approved.  Of  course,  satisfaction 
on  a  different  plane  results  from  a  feeling  of  attainment 
and  possession;  but  it  then  becomes  pride  or  vanity,  which 
in  turn  may  or  may  not  be  of  the  snobbish  sort. 

In  popular  apprehension,  indeed,  snobbishness  and  vul- 
garity are  rated  as  more  opposite  than  allied.  The  snob  is 
thought  of  as  either  belonging  to  the  polite  world  or  try- 
ing to  secure  an  entrance  to  its  polished  circles.  If  he  oc- 
cupies the  former  position,  he  boasts  of  his  refinement,  and 
from  his  eminence  contemplates  with  scorn  or  at  best  an 
affable  condescension,  the  mob  below.  To  this  class  be- 
long such  members  as  Lytton's  and  Disraeli's  aristocrats; 
such  diverse  types  in  Dickens  as  Sir  John  Chester,  the 
Monseigneur  in  'Tale  of  Two  Cities,  Mrs.  General,  and  Mrs. 
Gowan;  Thackeray's  Marquis  of  Steyne,  Major  Pendennis, 
and  the  Misses  Pinkerton;  Trollope's  de  Courcys  and  the 
Chaldicote  circle;  Meredith's  Everard  Romfrey  and  Fer- 
dinand Laxley. 

But  if  the  snob  is  engaged  in  climbing  up  instead  of  look- 
ing down,  he  is  likely  to  have  some  common  clay  still 
clinging  to  his  shoes,  as  well  as  to  be  dishevelled  by  the  ex- 
ertions of  the  ascent.  Such  insignia  of  vulgarity  are  worn 
by  a  numerous  clan,  including  the  politician  Rigby,  the 
money-lender  Baron  Levy;  x  the  Veneerings  and  Dorrits, 
and  those  patriotic  American  snobs  whom  Martin  Chuz- 

1  This  character  makes  a  shrewd  comment,  which  indicts  English  society  for 
being  a  promoter  of  snobbishness:  "They  call  me  a  parvenu,  and  borrow  my 
money.  They  call  our  friend  the  wit,  a  parvenu,  and  submit  to  all  his  inso- 
lence *  *  *  provided  they  can  but  get  him  to  dinner.  They  call  the  best 
debater  in  the  Parliament  of  England  a  parvenu,  and  will  entreat  him,  some 
day  or  other,  to  be  prime  minister,  and  ask  him  for  stars  and  garters.  A  droll 
world,  and  no  wonder  the  parvenus  want  to  upset  it."  My  Novel,  II,  130. 


TYPES  245 

zlewit  found  so  insufferably  vulgar;  Barry  Lyndon,  Mr. 
Os borne,  and  Becky  Sharp;  Mr.  Slope,  Mr.  Crosbie,  and 
the  great  Melmotte. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  frankly  vulgar  is  reckoned  among 
the  plebeians.  As  there  is  a  snobbishness  free  from  coarse- 
ness, so  there  is  a  vulgarity  unembellished  even  by  pseudo- 
culture.  In  this  ugly  and  gross  scum  of  the  earth  no  nov- 
elist really  delights  except  the  creator  of  Mrs.  Gamp, 
Quilp,  Squeers,  and  Fagin  and  his  crew,  though  Thack- 
eray is  able  to  depict  Sir  Pitt  Crawley;  Trollope,  the 
Scathards;  and  Meredith,  Sedgett. 

The  compound  of  snobbishness  and  vulgarity  has  the 
additional  complexity  of  ramifying  into  hypocrisy  on  one 
side  and  sentimentality  on  the  other.  The  first  conjunc- 
tion is  made  because  of  the  incitement  to  that  fawning, 
flattering  servility  that  more  than  anything  else  rouses 
satiric  disgust.  The  second  occurs  when  the  flattering 
unction  is  laid  to  one's  own  soul  instead  of  being  paid  to 
the  possessions  of  others.  The  first  is  obvious  and  its  ex- 
amples are  legion.  The  second  is  more  subtle  and  ob- 
scure, though  perhaps  almost  as  prevalent.  It  consists  in 
an  inaccurate  orientation,  a  supposition  that  one  has  ar- 
rived at  a  goal,  when  the  case  is  otherwise.  Such  unwar- 
ranted complacency  cheers  the  lot  of  Mrs.  Kirkpatrick, 
Mrs.  Hobson  Newcome,  Mrs.  Proudie,  and  the  Countess 
de  Saldar. 

This,  however,  is  only  one  phase  of  sentimentality.  It 
also  may  exist  independently,  or  otherwise  combined 
than  with  snobbishness  or  vulgarity.  It  is  a  term  some- 
what ambiguous  because  of  a  recently  changed  connota- 
tion. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  "sensibility,"  and  re- 
garded as  a  virtue  until  Jane  Austen  exhibited  it  in  Mari- 


246       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

anne  Dashwood  and  her  mother.  At  that  time  it  was 
thought  of  as  excess  of  feeling  or  sentiment  cherished  for 
its  own  sake,  without  much  regard  for  the  worthiness  of  its 
object.  Marianne,  disappointed  in  the  vanished  romance 
she  had  built  up  chiefly  from  imaginative  material,  "  would 
have  thought  herself  very  inexcusable  had  she  been  able  to 
sleep  at  all  the  first  night  after  parting  from  Willoughby. 
She  would  have  been  ashamed  to  look  her  family  in  the 
face  the  next  morning,  had  she  not  risen  from  her  bed  in 
more  need  of  repose  than  when  she  lay  down  in  it."  1 

If  Meredith,  three-quarters  of  a  century  later,  had  been 
relating  the  sad  fortunes  of  a  self-deceived  young  lady,  he 
would  have  stressed  in  his  account  of  her  character,  the 
cause  of  the  trouble,  that  is,  the  process  of  constructing  a 
Spanish  castle  with  a  flimsy  foundation  in  fact,  rather  than 
the  effect,  namely,  the  emotional  orgy  which  celebrated  its 
inevitable  but  astonishing  collapse.  He  would  have  seen 
that  preliminary  process  as  possible  because  of  the  disre- 
gard for  facts  which  is  the  real  mark  of  the  sentimentalist.2 
This  later  interpretation  is  not  a  contradiction  of  the 
earlier  one,  but  a  shifting  of  emphasis.  The  common  factor 
in  the  two  definitions  is  feeling,  ranging  all  the  way  from 

1  Sense  and  Sensibility,  II,  85. 

2  This  conception  of  sentimentality  has  many  illustrations,  expressed  and  im- 
plied.   Chesterton  describes  the  sentimentalist  as  "the  man  who  wants  to  eat 
his  cake  and  have  it,"  who  "has  no  sense  of  honour  about  ideas,"  and  who  keeps 
a  quarreling  "intellectual  harem."    Crotch,  in  his  Pageantry  of  Dickens,  remarks 
that  the  English  "prefer  a  plaster  of  platitudes  to  the  x-rays  of  investigation." 
Meredith  in  his  Up  to  Midnight,  observes  that  liberty  is  one  of  the  phrases  we 
suck  like  sweetmeats,  and  adds,  "We  read  the  newspapers  daily,  and  yet  we 
surround  ourselves  with  a  description  of  scenic  extravaganza  conjured  up  to 
displace  uncomfortable  facts.    The  image  of  it  is  the  Florentine  Garden  estab- 
lished in  the  midst  of  the  Plague. " 

See  also  Butler's  Notebooks,  Anatole  France's  essay  on  Dumas,  and  Bailey's 
biography  of  Meredith. 


TYPES  247 

simple  preference  or  inclination  to  strong  emotion.  But 
whereas  formerly  this  element  was  accepted  without  fur- 
ther analysis,  it  came  later  to  b.e  accounted  for  in  its  re- 
lation to  the  intellect.  Emotion  is  an  excellent  driver  but  I/ 
an  untrustworthy  leader.  It  is  when  it  assumes  leadership, 
when  action  is  not  only  impelled  but  guided  by  feeling, 
that  the  ensuing  motion  is  in  danger  of  being  erratic,  un- 
progressive,  perhaps  calamitous.  This  more  or  less  wil- 
ful blindness,  which  is  the  essence  of  sentimentality,  is  of 
course  a  very  natural  human  trait.  Since  it  is  the  func- 
tion of  emotion  to  supply  heat,  and  of  intellect  to  furnish 
light,  and  since  warmth  is  as  a  rule  more  grateful  than  il- 
lumination, particularly  if  the  prospect  does  not  please,  we 
are  much  more  likely  to  be  warmed  in  our  passage  through 
life  than  illumined.  To  refuse  to  see  the  disagreeable  is  as  • 
instinctive  as  to  seek  the  delightful.  Nor  could  one  be  re- 
garded as  more  of  a  fault  than  the  other  until  the  love  of 
truth  for  its  own  sake  became  an  ideal,  accompanying  the 
dominance  of  the  scientific  spirit. 

This  accounts  for  the  fact  that,  while  Meredith  did  not 
invent  the  sentimentalist  any  more  than  Dickens  the  hyp- 
ocrite or  Thackeray  the  snob,  he  is  the  first  to  take  a  deep 
and  conscious  interest  in  this  species;  being  especially  fitted 
for  it  by  his  own  incisive,  highly  rationalized  nature  as  well 
as  by  the  spirit  of  his  time.  His  predecessors  in  this  field 
are  Peacock,  Gaskell,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  Eliot, 
although  the  last  is  rather  a  contemporary.  J^ 

From  Squire  Headlong,  the  would-be  savant,  to  Mr. 
Falconer,  the  would-be  Platonist  and  devotee  of  Saint 
Cecilia,  Peacock  traces  a  vein  of  rather  innocuous  senti- 
mentality, but  of  Miss  Damaretta  Pinmoney  he  gives  a 
definite  account,  followed  by  several  examples: 1 

1  Melincourt,  23. 


248        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"She  had  cultivated  a  great  deal  of  theoretical  romance — 
in  taste,  not  in  feeling — an  important  distinction — which  en- 
abled her  to  be  most  liberally  sentimental  in  words,  without 
at  all  influencing  her  actions." 

Mrs.  Shaw  represents  those  who  so  appreciate  the  value 
of  romantic  affliction  that,  lacking  a  grief,  they  manufac- 
ture a  grievance  to  cover  the  deficiencies  of  a  too  roseate 
existence.  On  a  certain  melancholy  occasion  to  be  sure 
she  orders  "  those  extra  delicacies  of  the  season  which  are 
always  supposed  to  be  efficacious  against  immoderate 
grief  at  farewell  dinners."  But  her  usual  manner —  1 

"*  *  *  had  always  something  plaintive  in  it,  arising 
from  the  long  habit  of  considering  herself  a  victim  to  an  un- 
congenial marriage.  Now  that,  the  General  being  gone,  she 
had  every  good  of  life,  with  as  few  drawbacks  as  possible,  she 
had  been  rather  perplexed  to  find  an  anxiety,  if  not  a  sorrow. 
She  had,  however,  of  late  settled  upon  her  own  health  as  a 
source  of  apprehension;  she  had  a  nervous  little  cough  whenever 
she  thought  about  it;  and  some  complaisant  doctor  ordered 
her  just  what  she  desired, — a  winter  in  Italy." 

It  is  Mrs.  Kirkpatrick,  however,  who  takes  the  prize 
in  "pink  sentimentalism,"  and  holds  it  until  the  arrival  of 
the  Countess  de  Saldar,  and  the  Pole  sisters.  Behind  the 
"sweet  perpetuity  of  her  smile"  is  carried  on  an  equally 
perpetual  manoevering,  which  ministers,  under  the  aus- 
pices of  refinement  and  the  proprieties,  to  a  small  and  sel- 
fish tyranny.  If  by  any  chance  she  is  detected  or  foiled, 
she  is  deeply  wounded,  for  if  she  hates  anything,  "it  is  the 
slightest  concealment  and  reserve."  Moreover,  she  never 

1  North  and  South,  9.  Cf.  Kingsley's  crude  and  literal  handling  of  the  same 
theme.  Anna  Maria  Heale  was  always  talking  of  her  nerves,  "though  she  had 
nerves  only  in  the  sense  wherein  a  sirloin  of  beef  has  them."  Two  Years 
Ago,  85. 


TYPES  249 

thinks  of  herself,  and  is  "really  the  most  forgiving  person 
in  the  world,  in  forgiving  slights."  She  is  overcome  by  the 
spring  weather, —  1 

"Primavera,  I  think  the  Italians  call  it.  *  *  *  It  makes 
me  sigh  perpetually;  but  then  I  am  so  sensitive.  Dear  Lady 
Cumnor  used  to  say  I  was  like  a  thermometer." 

But  it  is  in  her  association  with  Lady  Harriet  that  her 
sincerity  and  candor  shine  forth.  Apprised,  on  one  occa- 
sion, of  the  intention  of  that  personage — an  aristocrat  in 
character  as  well  as  social  station — to  honor  her  with  a 
morning  call,  she  dispatches  to  a  neighbor  her  stepdaugh- 
ter Molly,  of  whose  friendship  with  Lady  Harriet  she  is 
jealous,  and  keeps  at  home  her  own  daughter  Cynthia,  to 
prepare  the  especially  delicious  luncheon  to  which  the 
guest  is  to  be  invited  as  an  impromptu  bit  of  pot-luck. 
During  this  visit  Lady  Harriet  brings  up  the  question  of 
white  lies,  confessing  to  an  occasional  indulgence,  and  ask- 
ing her  hostess  if  she  never  yielded  to  the  temptation.  She 
is  answered: 2 

"I  should  have  been  miserable  if  I  ever  had.  I  should  have 
died  of  self-reproach.  'The  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  truth/  has  always  seemed  to  me  such  a  fine  pas- 
sage. But  then  I  have  so  much  that  is  unbending  in  my  na- 
ture." 

Dickens  and  Thackeray,  like  Lytton,  Reade,  and  Kings- 
ley,  have  too  much  of  this  trait  in  their  own  temperaments 

1  Wives  and  Daughters,  I,  394. 

*Ibid.,  I,  324.  Mrs.  Gaskell's  art  is  shown  in  making  Cynthia  a  foil  to  her 
mother.  Like  Dr.  Gibson  and  Molly,  she  sees  through  that  lady's  transparent 
veiling,  but  unlike  them,  she  is  more  frank  than  polite.  Her  distressingly 
literal  interpretations  of  the  subtle  speeches  to  which  the  household  is  treated, 
affords  a  contrast  that  is  lacking,  for  instance,  in  the  duet  of  Mrs.  Mackenzie 
and  Rosey. 


25O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

to  be  able  to  view  it  with  complete  detachment,  but  they 
present  a  few  samples.  Besides  Mrs.  Wititterly,  Harold 
Skimpole,  and  the  ever  illustrative  Mr.  Dorrit,  Dickens  is 
most  successful  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Micawber,  and  Mrs. 
Chick. 

When  Mr.  Micawber,  stimulated  by  the  prospect  of 
something  being  about  to  turn  up,  presents  poor  Traddles, 
with  great  eclat  and  ceremony,  his  personal  note  for  the 
exact  amount  of  his  indebtedness,  David,  a  witness,  re- 
flects: 1 

"I  am  persuaded,  not  only  that  this  was  quite  the  same  to 
Mr.  Micawber  as  paying  the  money,  but  that  Traddles  himself 
hardly  knew  the  difference  until  he  had  had  time  to  think  about 
it."  " 

Mrs.  Chick,  with  true  Dombian  genius,  having  helped 
to  loosen  her  sister-in-law's  slender  hold  upon  life,  now  en- 
joys the  pathos  of  the  situation : 2 

"What  a  satisfaction  it  was  to  Mrs.  Chick — a  commonplace 
piece  of  folly  enough,  *  *  *  to  patronize  and  be  tender  to 
the  memory  of  that  lady;  in  exact  pursuance  of  her  conduct 
to  her  in  her  lifetime;  and  to  thoroughly  believe  herself,  and 
take  herself  in,  and  make  herself  uncommonly  comfortable  on 
the  strength  of  her  toleration!  What  a  mighty  pleasant  virtue 
toleration  should  be  when  we  are  right,  to  be  so  very  pleasant 
when  we  are  wrong,  and  quite  unable  to  demonstrate  how  we 
came  to  be  invested  with  the  privilege  of  exercising  it!" 

In  her  capricious  cruelty  to  Lucretia  Tox,  she  pretends 
to  be  scandalized  at  what  she  had  fostered  all  along,  and 
taunts  the  dismayed  woman  for  the  very  thing  she  had 
been  aiding  and  abetting: 3 

1  David  Copperfield,  II,  102.  *  Dombey  and  Son,  I,  57. 

3  Ibid,  464. 


TYPES  251 

"'The  scales;'  here  Mrs.  Chick  cast  down  an  imaginary  pair, 
such  as  are  commonly  used  in  grocers'  shops;  'have  fallen  from 
my  sight.'  *  *  *  'How  can  I  speak  to  you  like  that?'  re- 
torted Mrs.  Chick,  who,  in  default  of  having  any  particular 
argument  to  sustain  herself  upon,  relied  principally  upon  such 
repetitions  for  her  most  withering  effects.  'Like  that!  You 
may  well  say  like  that,  indeed!"1 

Thackeray  is  included  in  this  list  chiefly  on  the  strength 
of  the  Osbornes,  Pitt  Crawley,  and  to  a  less  degree, 
Blanche  Armory  and  Mrs.  Bute.  Of  the  first  he  says,  re- 
garding certain  declarations  of  disinterested  friendliness 
and  admiration, — "There  is  little  doubt  that  old  Osborne 
believed  all  he  said,  and  that  the  girls  were  quite  in  earnest 
in  their  protestations  of  affection  for  Miss  Swartz."  And 
his  thrust  at  the  hoodwinked  Pitt's  delighted  apprehension 
that  the  clever  Becky  really  understood  and  appreciated 
him,  is  a  palpable  hit.  He  also  arraigns  under  this  head 
his  favorite  satirical  object, — "the  moral  world,  that  has, 
perhaps,  no  particular  objection  to  vice,  but  an  insuperable 
repugnance  to  hearing  vice  called  by  its  proper  name." 
On  the  other  hand,  more  than  any  other  novelist,  he  has 
given  us  sentimentalists  unaware;  that  is,  in  such  charac- 
ters as  Helen,  Laura,  and  Arthur  Pendennis,  Lady  Castle- 
wood,  and  Colonel  Newcome,  he  shares  their  own  unaware- 
ness  of  the  possession  of  this  foible,  though  in  all  these  it  is 
of  an  innocent  variety. 

George  Eliot  is  keenly  alive  to  this  blindness  in  human 
nature,  particularly  as  it  manifests  itself  in  the  pernicious 
optimism  of  weak  and  wilful  youth;  but  as  with  other  mor- 
tal failures,  it  is  usually  too  serious  in  her  eyes  for  satire. 
Of  all  her  novels,  Felix  Holt  and  Daniel  Deronda  alone  have 
no  character  of  this  type.  In  the  others  he  appears  as  Ar- 
thur Donnithorne,  Stephen  Guest,  Godfrey  Cass,  Tito 


252       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Melema,  and  Fred  Vincy;  but  rarely  is  he  ridiculed,  and 
then  ironically. 

Of  the  bonny  young  Squire  Donnithorne  she  draws  the 
portrait  as  he  himself  would  see  it: l 

"*  *  *  candour  was  one  of  his  favorite  virtues;  and  how 
can  a  man's  candour  be  seen  in  all  its  lustre  unless  he  has  a  few 
failings  to  talk  of?  But  he  had  an  agreeable  confidence  that 
his  faults  were  all  of  a  generous  kind — impetuous,  warm- 
blooded, leonine;  never  crawling,  crafty,  reptilian.  'No!  I'm 
a  devil  of  a  fellow  for  getting  myself  into  a  hobble,  but  I  always 
take  care  the  load  shall  fall  on  my  own  shoulders.'  Unhappily 
there  is  no  inherent  poetic  justice  in  hobbles,  and  they  will 
sometimes  obstinately  refuse  to  inflict  their  worst  consequences 
on  the  prime  offender,  in  spite  of  his  loudly-expressed  wish. 
It  was  entirely  owing  to  this  deficiency  in  the  scheme  of  things 
that  Arthur  had  ever  brought  any  one  into  trouble  besides  him- 
self." 

Even  when  troublesome  consequences  threatened  both 
himself  and  others,  he  was  buoyed  up  by  "a  sort  of  im- 
plicit confidence  in  him  that  he  was  really  such  a  good 
fellow  at  bottom,  Providence  would  not  treat  him 
harshly." 

Tito  Melema  also  leaned  heavily  on  the  law  of  compen- 
sation: 2 

"It  was  not  difficult  for  him  to  smile  pleadingly  on  those 
whom  he  had  injured,  and  offer  to  do  them  much  kindness: 
and  no  quickness  of  intellect  could  tell  him  exactly  the  taste  of 
that  honey  on  the  lips  of  the  injured." 

1  Adam  Bede,  I,  184. 

8  Romola,  II,  469.  Cf.  Two  Years  Ago,  for  a  sample  of  Kingsley's  personally 
applied,  Thackerayan  sarcasm  on  a  similar  subject, — we  young  men,  "  blinded 
by  our  self-conceit,"  and  so  on. 


TYPES  253 

Godfrey  Cass,  having  little  to  say  for  himself,  is  drawn 
with  much  sympathy,  the  responsibility  being  thrown 
upon  his  self-excusing  father: 1 

"The  Squire's  life  was  quite  as  idle  as  his  sons',  but  it  was  a 
fiction  kept  up  by  himself  and  his  contemporaries  in  Raveloe 
that  youth  was  exclusively  the  period  of  folly,  and  that  their 
aged  wisdom  was  constantly  in  a  state  of  endurance  mitigated 
by  sarcasm." 

In  addition  to  these  instances,  and  such  casual  phrases 
as,  "  that  softening  influence  of  the  fine  arts  which  makes 
other  peoples'  hardships  picturesque,"  and  "  that  pleasure 
of  guessing  which  active  minds  notoriously  prefer  to 
ready-made  knowledge,"  George  Eliot  defines  senti- 
mentality indirectly  in  the  words  of  Mary  Garth,  an  ob- 
servant young  woman  and  something  of  a  humorist  in  her 
own  right:2 

"*  *  *  people  were  so  ridiculous  with  their  illusions, 
carrying  their  fools'  caps  unawares,  thinking  their  own  lies 
opaque  while  everybody  elses'  were  transparent,  making  them- 
selves exceptions  to  everything,  as  if  when  all  the  world  looked 
yellow  under  a  lamp  they  alone  were  rosy. " 

The  sentimentalist  is  rampant  in  Meredith's  novels,  de- 
picted in  all  his  aspects.  The  keynote  is  that  the  senti- 
mental spirit  may  be  arbitrarily  hospitable,  not  obliged 
to  keep  open  house  whither  all  truths  may  turn  for  shelter. 
"Bear  in  mind,"  he  admonishes,  "that  we  are  sentimen- 
talists. The  eye  is  our  servant,  not  our  master;  and  so  are 

1  Silas  Marnety  84.     Cf.  Catherine  Arrowpoint's  interpretation  of  parental 
piety:  "  People  can  easily  take  the  sacred  word  duty  as  a  name  for  what  they 
desire  any  one  else  to  do."    Daniel  Deronda,  I,  370. 

2  Middlfmarch,  II,  61.    She  also  refused  to  marry  Fred  Vincy  if  he  took 
orders,  because  she  "could  not  love  a  man  who  is  ridiculous."      He  would  be  so 
because  of  the  entire  absence  of  the  clerical  in  his  nature. 


254       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

the  senses  generally.    We  are  not  bound  to  accept  more 
than  we  choose  from  them."  1 

It  is  in  Sandra  Eelloni  that  Meredith  is  most  expository 
on  the  subject,  and  in  connection  with  the  Pole  sisters.  He 
says  of  them, —  2 

"It  may  be  seen  that  they  were  sentimentalists.  That  is 
to  say,  they  supposed  that  they  enjoyed  exclusive  possession 
of  the  Nice  Feelings,  and  exclusively  comprehended  the  Fine 
Shades."  They  had  "that  extraordinary  sense  of  superiority  to 
mankind  which  was  the  crown  of  their  complacent  brows. 
Eclipsed  as  they  may  be  in  the  gross  appreciation  of  the  world  by 
other  people,  who  excel  in  this  or  that  accomplishment,  persons 
that  nourish  Nice  Feelings  and  are  intimate  with  the  Fine 
Shades  carry  their  own  test  of  intrinsic  value." 

Here,  however,  the  sentimental  fallacy  is  shown  to  be 
v  the  reverse  side  of  the  refusal  to  see  what  is,  and  to  con- 
sist in  the  assertion  of  what  is  not.  This  is  a  logical  corol- 
lary, since  merely  to  disregard  the  unpleasant  is  a  passive 
state  until  reinforced  by  the  active  process  of  manufactur- 
ing the  desirable.  Actually  to  manufacture  the  desirable 
is  a  constructive  work,  and  the  occupation  of  the  enter- 
prising idealist.  The  sentimentalist  manufactures  only 
in  fancy,  and,  being  a  sentimentalist,  does  not  know  the 
difference.  His  imagination,  that  marvelous  power  of 
visualizing  the  absent  or  non-existent,  is  perverted  by  be- 
ing turned  inward  and  forced  to  rest  content  with  its  hol- 
low fabrication,  instead  of  being  directed  outward  upon 
a  plastic  world  waiting  its  formative  touch.  As  the  urge 

1  Sandra  Bflloni,  220. 

*Ibid.y  4.  He  enlarges  on  this  result  of  an  effete  civilization,  hinting 
that  "our  sentimentalists  are  a  variety  owing  their  existence  to  a  certain  pro- 
longed term  of  comfortable  feeding.  The  pig,  it  will  be  retorted,  passes  like- 
wise through  this  training.  He  does.  But  in  him  it  is  not  combined  with  an 
indigestion  of  high  German  romances." 


TYPES  255 

to  an  ideal  of  excellence  is  the  most  hopeful  quality  of  hu- 
man nature,  so  the  satisfied  repose  on  the  fictitious  sup- 
position of  such  excellence  is  the  most  hopeless.  Being, 
as  Meredith  adds,  "a  perfectly  natural  growth  of  a  fat 
soil,"  it  lacks  the  stimulus  of  a  rebuff  that  turns  earth's 
smoothness  rough,  and  perceives  no  necessity  for  striv- 
ing or  daring. 

On  this  assertive  side  sentimentality  is  related  to  egoism. 
But  the  relation  is  difficult  to  express,  for  egoism  is  another 
complexity  that  baffles  analysis.  Self-respect  and  atten- 
tion to  one's  own  affairs  are  basic  and  indispensable  vir- 
tues; while  conversely,  altruism  is  often  but  egoism  in  dis- 
guise and  of  all  things  the  most  sentimental.  We  may 
conclude,  however,  that  it  is  egoism  pushed  to  its  two  ex- 
tremes, vanity  on  the  one  side  and  selfishness  on  the  other, 
that  is  the  satirizible  sort.  It  is  to  the  vanity  wing  that 
sentimentality  is  more  closely  connected,  as  the  assump- 
tion it  makes  is  usually  that  of  our  own  superiority  in 
possession  and  attainment,  our  own  sincerity  of  motive, 
and  our  own  immunity  from  ordinary  consequences.  Such 
is  the  attitude  of  the  sentimental  egoists,  of  which  Mer- 
edith gives  us  a  full  complement. 

The  Countess  de  Saldar  is  abused  by  the  exposure  of  her 
schemes,  but  resolute: 1 

"Still  to  be  sweet,  still  to  smile  and  to  amuse, — still  to  give 
her  zealous  attention  to  the  business  of  the  diplomatist's  Elec- 
tion, still  to  go  through  her  church  service  devoutly,  required 
heroism;  she  was  equal  to  it,  for  she  had  remarkable  courage; 
but  it  was  hard  to  feel  no  longer  at  one  with  Providence. " 

Wilfred  Pole,  by  Wilming  Weir  in  the  moonlight,  vows 
his  love  for  Emilia: 2 

1  Evan  Harrington,  349.  *  Sandra  Bclloni,  152. 


256       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Having  said  it,  he  was  screwed  up  to  feel  it  as  nearly  as 
possible,  such  virtue  is  there  in  uttered  words." 

Edward  Blancove  is  visited  by  the  facile  compunction 
that  attacks  Arthur  Donnithorne  and  others  of  the  kind: 1 

"He  closed,  as  it  were,  a  black  volume,  and  opened  a  new  and 
bright  one.  Young  men  easily  fancy  that  they  may  do  this,  and 
that  when  the  black  volume  is  shut  the  tide  is  stopped.  Saying '  I 
was  a  fool/  they  believe  they  have  put  an  end  to  the  foolishness." 

Outside  of  Eliot  and  Meredith,  the  best  examples  of  the 
youthful  sentimental  egoist  are  Thackeray's  George  Os- 
borne,  and  Trollope's  Crosbie.  The  latter  argues  him- 
self into  a  state  of  innocence  over  his  desertion  of  Lily  Dale 
by  soliloquizing  that  he  did  not  deserve  her,  could  not 
make  her  happy,  and  was  bound  to  tell  the  truth,  which, 
however  painful,  was  always  best.2 

A  word  might  be  vouchsafed  for  this  trait  in  low  life,  us- 
ually brushed  lightly  by  the  novelist.  Dale  of  Allington  is 
a  great  man  in  the  market  town,  "laying  down  the  law  as 
to  barley  and  oxen  among  men  who  usually  knew  more 
about  barley  and  oxen  than  he  did."  Squire  Cass,  a  per- 
son of  some  importance,  "  had  a  tenant  or  two,  who  com- 
plained of  the  game  to  him  quite  as  if  he  had  been  a  lord." 
Craig  looks  to  Mrs.  Poyser  "like  a  cock  as  thinks  the 
sun's  rose  o'  purpose  to  hear  him  crow."  3  f  And  Robert 

1  Rhoda  Fleming,  149.    Cf.  Victor  Radnor,  who  "intended  impressing  himself 
upon  the  world  as  a  factory  of  ideas."    Also  Sir  Willoughby,  who  can  account 
for  Laetitia's  refusal  of  him  only  by  the  reflection, — "There's  a  madness  comes 
over  women  at  times,  I  know." 

2  He  also  visualizes  himself  as  a  Don  Juan,  Lothario,  Lovelace,  and  thinks, 
"Why  should  not  he  be  a  curled  darling  as  well  as  another?"    He  is  consequently 
hurt  and  astonished  when,  after  the  event,  his  disarming  confession,  "I  know 
I've  behaved  badly,"  was  met  by  the  unsympathetic  agreement,  "Well,  yes, 
I'm  afraid  you  have." 

8  Cf.  the  whole  motif  of  Rostand's  Chanticlfr. 


TYPES  257 

Armstrong  says  of  Master  Gammon, — "There's  nothing 
to  do,  which  is  his  busiest  occupation,  when  he's  not  in- 
terrupted at  it." 

Then  there  are  the  unsentimental  egoists,  attached  to 
the  selfish  and  domineering  wing  of  egoism.  They  are  less 
amenable  to  satire,  being  less  deceptive  by  nature,  and 
more  prone  to  tyranny  and  cruelty,  thereby  deserving  re- 
buke without  humor.  This  class  is  represented  by  Psiul 
Dombey,  Barnes  Newcome,  Tom  Tulliver,  and  others 
from  the  author  of  the  last.  This  is  another  favorite  type 
with  Eliot,  the  self-willed  sharing  honors  with  the  self- 
indulgent.  Grandcourt  "meant  to  be  master  of  a  woman 
who  would  have  liked  to  master  him,  and  who  perhaps 
would  have  been  capable  of  mastering  another  man." 
Tito  Melema  "felt  that  Romola  was  a  more  unforgiving 
woman  than  he  had  imagined;  her  love  was  not  that  sweet, 
clinging  instinct,  stronger  than  all  judgments,  which,  he 
began  to  see  now,  made  the  great  charm  of  a  wife."  Har- 
old Transome,  who  "had  a  padded  yoke  ready  for  the  neck 
of  every  man,  woman,  and  child  that  depended  on  him," 
makes  the  alarming  discovery  about  Esther  that  a  light- 
ning "shot  out  of  her  now  and  then,  which  seemed  the  sign 
of  a  dangerous  judgment;  as  if  she  inwardly  saw  something 
more  admirable  than  Harold  Transome.  Now,  to  be  per- 
fectly charming,  a  woman  should  not  see  this."  Meredith 
portrays  this  irresponsible  selfishness  in  Roy  Richmond, 
Lord  Ormont,  and  Lord  Fleetwood;  and  defines  it  in  Sir 
Austin's  Pilgrim's  Scrip,  which  says  that  sentimentalists 
"are  they  who  seek  to  enjoy  without  incurring  the  Im- 
mense Debtorship  for  a  thing  done."  1 

1  Sentimentalism  is  further  described  as  "  a  happy  pastime  and  an  import- 
ant science  to  the  timid,  the  idle,  and  the  heartless;  but  a  damning  one  to  them 
who  have  anything  to  forfeit."  Richard  Feverel,  220. 


258        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Another  and  more  passive  type  of  the  egoist  is  the  epi- 
curean. He  asks  only  to  have  his  tastes  gratified,  and,  be- 
ing devoted  to  material  comfort,  demands  little  of  the 
world  but  material  supplies.  Epicurianism  is  marked  by 
an  indulgent  good-humor  so  long  as  it  is  itself  indulged, 
and  when  not  gratified  sinks  into  nothing  worse  than 
peevishness.  Though  it  may  be  a  deplorable  trait,  it  is 
not  a  ridiculous  one  in  itself,  and  is  therefore  satirized  only 
when  in  conjunction  with  something  that  produces  an  in- 
congruity. The  constant  stream  of  satire  directed  against 
the  epicurean  clergy,  for  instance,  is  due  to  the  sense  of  an 
incompatibility  between  a  profession  which  inculcates  sim- 
plicity at  least,  if  not  actual  asceticism,  and  a  regime  of 
sensuous  indulgence.  Those  who  are  legitimately  worldly, 
as  for  example  the  patrician  triad  depicted  by  Thackeray, — 
Miss  Crawley,  the  Countess  of  Kew,  and  Madam  Bern- 
stein,— may  not  be  admirable,  but  neither  are  they  absurd. 

In  Adrian  Harley  we  have  the  egoistic  epicure  in  all  his 
plump  perfection.  Meredith  hastens,  however,  to  excul- 
pate the  founder  of  the  hedonistic  philosophy: l 

"Adrian  was  an  epicurean;  one  whom  Epicurus  would  have 
scourged  out  of  his  garden,  certainly;  an  epicurean  of  our  mod- 
ern notions. " 

The  combination  in  him  of  cynic,  self-pamperer,  and 
Sir  Oracle  forms  a  type  which  Meredith  especially  delights 
to  dishonor,  because  its  own  smugness  puts  a  splash  of 

1  In  an  access  of  particularly  malicious  realism,  Meredith  calls  attention  to  a 
region  that  was  already  "  a  trifle  prominent  in  the  person  of  the  wise  youth, 
and  carried,  as  it  were,  the  flag  of  his  philosophical  tenets  in  front  of  him.'* 
He  is  also  described  as  having  "an  instinct  for  the  majority,  and,  as  the  world 
invariably  found  him  enlisted  in  its  ranks,  his  appellation  of  wise  youth  was 
acquiesced  in  without  irony."  Again, — '*  discreetness,  therefore,  was  instructed 
to  reign  at  the  Abbey.  Under  Adrian's  able  tuition  the  fairest  of  its  domestics 
acquired  that  virtue." 


TYPES  259 

color,  as  it  were,  on  the  bull's-eye  and  renders  it  more 
conspicuous.  Not  only  is  the  epicure  pierced  with  many 
an  ironic  shaft,  but  the  Wise  Youth  is  made  the  veritable 
error  incarnate  of  the  Feverel  tragedy.  For  it  was  his 
Fabian  policy,  dictated  and  obeyed,  that  knotted  still 
more  the  sad  tangle,  just  as  it  was  Austin  Wentworth's 
simple  manly  directness  that  proved  the  knot  could  be  cut 
easily  by  prompt  and  silent  action.  Indeed,  in  these  two 
characters  we  see  exemplified  throughout  the  story  the 
false  Florimell  of  vanity  and  the  true  Florimell  of  pride, — 
the  pride  that  is  too  proud  to  do  an  unworthy  or  debasing 
deed,  and  the  vanity  that  can  counterfeit  successfully  un- 
til confronted  by  the  genuine  reality. 

Egoism  within  bounds  is  a  perfectly  sane  and  rational 
thing,  but  to  keep  it  within  bounds  is  exceedingly  difficult. 
When  given  over  to  an  irrational  rule  it  grows  into  fanat- 
icism.  For  the  fanatic  owes  his  monomania  to  the  force 
of  a  strong  personality,  which  engenders  the  unmitigated 
assurance  of  being  right,  plus  the  perverted  reasoning 
that  characterizes  the  sentimentalist.  He  is  always  fool- 
ish, but  seldom  a  hypocrite,  as  his  deception  usually  ex- 
tends to  himself.  His  selfishness  is  of  the  opposite  sort 
from  the  epicure's.  What  he  seeks  is  not  a  soft  berth  and 
personal  acquisitions,  but  a  chance  to  impose  his  opinions 
on  a  misguided  world,  and  to  dominate  over  converts  or 
subjects.  In  his  milder  moods  he  only  dreams  of  happy 
schemes  and  far-reaching  reforms,  but  when  charged  with 
energy  his  proselyting  zeal  terids  to  make  him  tyrannical. 

In  some  form  or  other  he  appears  on  the  pages  of  almost 
every  Victorian  novelistV  That  the  faddist  is  a  favorite 
subject  with  Peacock  is  well  known.  Lytton  gives  a  de- 
lightful contribution  in  the  Uncle  Jack  of  'The  Caxtonsy 
whose  "bewitching  enthusiasm  and  convincing  calcula- 


26O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

tion"  led  him  into  alluring  speculations  that  invariably 
proved  disastrous  to  the  members  of  his  family.  Not  fi- 
nancial but  missionary  and  philanthropic  zeal  animate  the 
souls  immortalized  by  Dickens, — Mrs.  Jellyby  and  Mrs. 
Pardiggle,  Reverend  Honeythunder,  and  the  Snagsbys. 
Bronte  and  Kingsley  specialize  in  the  religious  bigot.  The 
former  satirizes  the  Jesuit  in  Villette>  but  not  St.  John 
Rivers,  who  is  drawn  seriously.  The  latter  gives  a  vivid 
picture  in  his  Mrs.  Locke  and  the  Calvinistic  preachers, 
and  another,  of  the  opposite  type,  done  with  more  par- 
tisanship and  less  sympathy,  in  the  vicar  and  Argemone 
in  Yeast.  Trollope  is  more  interested  in  the  sociological 
zealot.  He  introduces  him  as  the  author,  Mr.  Popular 
Sentiment;  the  "Barchester  Brutus,"  Mr.  John  Bold; 
the  demagogue,  Ontario  Moggs,  son  of  a  capitalist,  and 
advocate  of  labor  unions;  and  some  characters  in  the  Par- 
liamentary Series.  A  sample  from  a  harangue  of  Moggs 
will  serve  to  illustrate  the  fair-mindedness  that  accom- 
panies Trollope's  love  of  parody.  He  quotes  and  then 
comments:  * 

"'  Gentlemen,  were  it  not  for  strikes,  this  would  be  a  country 
in  which  no  free  man  could  live.  By  the  aid  of  strikes  we  will 
make  it  the  Paradise  of  the  labourer,  and  Elysium  of  industry, 
an  Eden  of  artisans.'  There  was  much  more  of  it,  but  the 
reader  might  be  fatigued  were  the  full  flood  of  Mr.  Moggs's 
oratory  to  be  let  loose  upon  him.  And  through  it  all  there  was 
a  germ  of  truth,  and  a  strong  dash  of  true,  noble  feeling;  but 
the  speaker  had  omitted  as  yet  to  learn  how  much  thought 
must  be  given  to  a  germ  of  truth  before  it  can  be  made  to  pro- 

1  Ralph  the  Heir,  81.  He  dissects  him  a  little  further, — "How  far  the  real  phi- 
lanthropy of  the  man  may  have  been  marred  by  an  uneasy  and  fatuous  ambi- 
tion; how  far  he  was  carried  away  by  a  feeling  that  it  was  better  to  make 
speeches  at  the  Cheshire  Cheese  than  to  apply  for  payment  of  money  due  to 
his  father,  it  would  be  very  hard  for  us  to  decide. " 


TYPES  26l 

duce  fruit  for  the  multitude.  And  then,  in  speaking,  grand 
words  come  so  easily,  while  thoughts — even  little  thoughts — 
flow  so  slowly!" 

Mrs.  Proudie  herself  is  above  all  a  politician,  and  justi- 
fies her  existence  by  turning  her  religious  bigotry  into  the 
channel  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  a  procedure  that  well  might 
cause  the  gentle  bishop  to  quake: 1 

"When  Mrs.  Proudie  began  to  talk  about  the  souls  of  the 
people  he  always  shook  in  his  shoes.  She  had  an  eloquent  way 
of  raising  her  voice  over  the  word  souls  that  was  qualified  to 
make  any  ordinary  man  shake  in  his  shoes." 

She  rejoices  in  an  opportunity  to  condone  with  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Clerical  Opposition  over  a  disappointment  she 
has  done  her  best  to  bring  upon  it: 2 

"Tor,  after  all,  Mrs.  Arabin,  what  are  the  things  of  this 
world? — dust  beneath  our  feet,  ashes  between  our  teeth,  grass 
cut  for  the  oven,  vanity,  vexation,  and  nothing  more!* — well 
pleased  with  which  variety  of  Christian  metaphors,  Mrs.  Prou- 
die walked  on,  still  muttering,  however,  something  about  worms 
and  grubs,  by  which  she  intended  to  signify  her  own  species 
and  the  Dumbello  and  Grantly  sects  of  it  in  particular. " 

George  Eliot's  zealots, — Dinah  Morris,  Savonarola, 
Felix  Holt,  Daniel  Deronda,  are  not  ridiculed,  except  for 
some  sarcastic  repartee  put  into  the  mouths  of  Mrs.  Poyser 
and  Esther  Lyon.  Nor  is  the  pseudo-scholar  Casaubon, 
though  he  is  described  as  having  a  soul  that  "went  on 
fluttering  in  the  swampy  ground  where  it  was  hatched, 
thinking  of  its  wings  and  never  flying,"  and  on  a  certain 
occasion,  as  slipping  "  again  into  the  library,  to  chew  a  cud 
of  erudite  mistake  about  Cush  and  Mizraim." 

1  Last  Chronicles  of  Barset,  I,  108.  *  Ibid.,  449. 


262        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Of  all  fanatics,  those  who  are  obsessed  by  an  educational 
theory  are  perhaps  the  most  dangerous,  as  they  impose 
their  systems  on  flexible  youth,  the  result  being  often  an 
orchard  of  lamentably  bent  twigs.  Two  exponents  of  op- 
posite divisions  of  this  type  are  Gradgrind,  who  aimed  at 
the  elimination  of  the  imagination,  and  Feverel,  who  pro- 
posed to  circumvent  the  element  of  original  sin  in  human 
composition,  by  the  policy  of  watchful  waiting  and  abso- 
lute dictation.  Both  come  to  grief  through  the  failure 
of  facts  to  support  their  philosophies;  but  Dickens  in  his 
optimism  makes  Gradgrind  a  wiser  man  through  being 
a  sadder,  while  Meredith  in  his  realism  keeps  Feverel 
blandly  unconscious  and  untaught  by  a  lesson  that  would 
have  pierced  any  heart  protected  by  a  less  impervious 
pericardium. 

All  the  materials  that  go  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  hu- 
man nature  are  thus  seen  to  be  so  commingled  and  inter- 
woven that  even  the  degree  of  separation  necessary  for 
examination  is  almost  impossible.  And  when  this  dis- 
section is  after  a  fashion  accomplished,  it  is  the  less  useful, 
in  that  the  same  strand  is  discovered  to  change  its  color 
and  texture  from  one  section  to  another.  Deception  is 
here  a  vice  and  there  a  virtue.  Folly  is  here  amusing  and 
there  horrifying.  Egoism  is  here  absorbent  and  there  en- 
croaching. There  are  sentimental  epicures  and  unsenti- 
mental epicures  and  ascetic  sentimentalists.  There  are 
vulgar  snobs  and  refined  snobs  and  a  vulgarity  that  is  not 
snobbish.  All  of  these  are  criticizably  absurd  at  times,  and 
yet  the  same  things  may  at  others  be  admirable  or  pathetic 
or  tragic.  Frequently  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  ad- 
vance on  the  one  step  that  separates  them,  and  merge 
their  diverse  identities. 

A  peculiarly  good  illustration  of  the  qualified  nature  of 


TYPES  263 

human  traits,  in  view  of  which  we  are  wise  to  discard  nouns 
in  favor  of  adjectives  for  identifying  purposes,  is  furnished 
by  Trollope's  Lady  Carbury.  She  is  hypocritical  in  her 
wire-pulling  intrigues,  but  not  a  hypocrite,  for  her  pre- 
tenses are  not  utterly  hollow;  her  sincerity  is  about  on 
the  average  level,  and  her  industry  much  above  it.  She  is 
sentimentally  foolish  in  her  maternal  devotion  to  a  son 
who  has  no  possible  claim  on  toleration,  much  less  on  a 
patient  and  sacrificing  indulgence,  but  not  a  fool,  for  her 
cleverness  is  indisputable.  She  is  as  tyrannic  to  her  daugh- 
ter as  lenient  to  her  son,  but  not  a  selfish  egoist,  for  she 
refuses  to  take  advantage  of  Mr.  Broune's  offer  of  mar- 
riage, especially  tempting  to  her  harassed  soul,  on  the  al- 
truistic grounds  that  she  and  her  family  would  be  more  of 
a  burden  than  a  comfort  to  Mr.  Broune.  She  is  not  a  vul- 
gar snob,  but  her  respect  for  aristocratic  connections  is  not 
always  marked  by  refinement  of  method  in  her  pursuit  of 
them.  .Much  of  all  this  is  unconsciously  betrayed  in  the 
series  of  three  letters  to  editors  and  critics,  bespeaking 
their  good  offices  for  her  new  book,  Criminal  Queens.  The 
epistles  are  tactfully  adjusted  to  their  respective  recipients. 
To  Mr.  Broune,  of  The  Morning  Breakfast  Table,  she  is 
intimately  confiding  and  begs  frankly  for  a  lift,  while 
pointing  out  the  attractive  features  of  her  volume: 1 

"The  sketch  of  Semiramis  is  at  any  rate  spirited,  though 
I  had  to  twist  it  about  a  little  to  bring  her  in  guilty.  Cleopatra, 

1  The  Way  We  Live  Now,  1-2.  In  this  connection  we  are  also  informed  that 
"  She  did  not  fall  in  love,  she  did  not  wilfully  flirt,  she  did  not  commit  herself; 
but  she  smiled  and  whispered,  and  made  confidences  and  looked  out  of  her 
own  eyes  into  men's  eyes  as  though  there  might  be  some  mysterious  bond  be- 
tween her  and  them — if  only  mysterious  circumstances  would  permit  it.  But 
the  end  of  it  all  was  to  induce  some  one  to  do  something  which  would  cause  a 
publisher  to  give  her  good  payment  for  indifferent  writing,  or  an  editor  to  be 
lenient  when,  upon  the  merits  of  the  case,  he  should  have  been  severe." 


264       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

of  course,  I  have  taken  from  Shakespeare:  what  a  wench  she 
was!  I  could  not  quite  make  Julia  a  queen;  but  it  was  impos- 
sible to  pass  over  so  piquant  a  character.  *  *  *  Marie 
Antoinette  I  have  not  quite  acquitted.  It  would  be  uninterest- 
ing,— perhaps  untrue.  I  have  accused  her  lovingly,  and  have 
kissed  when  I  have  scourged.  I  trust  the  British  public  will 
not  be  angry  because  I  do  not  whitewash  Caroline,  especially 
as  I  go  along  with  them  altogether  in  abusing  her  husband." 

To  Mr.  Booker,  of  The  Literary  Chronicle,  she  is  gently 
menacing,  reminding  him  that  she  has  engaged  to  review 
his  New  Tale  of  a  Tub  for  The  Morning  Breakfast  Table; 1 

"Indeed,  I  am  about  it  now,  and  am  taking  great  pains 
with  it.  If  there  is  anything  you  wish  to  have  specially  said 
as  to  your  view  of  the  Protestantism  of  the  time,  let  me  know. 
I  should  like  you  to  say  a  word  as  to  the  accuracy  of  my  his- 
torical details,  which  I  know  you  can  safely  do." 

To  Mr.  Alf,  of  The  Evening  Pulpit,  of  whom  she  has  rea- 
son to  be  afraid,  her  candor  assumes  a  more  impersonal  and 
business-like  air.  She  alludes  to  a  recent  caustic  criticism 
in  the  Pulpit  of  some  poor  poetic  wretch  who  well  de- 
served it: 

"I  have  no  patience  with  the  pretensions  of  would-be  poets 
who  contrive  by  toadying  and  underground  influences  to  get 
their  volumes  placed  on  every  drawing-room  table.  *  *  * 
Is  it  not  singular  how  some  men  contrive  to  obtain  the  reputa- 
tion of  popular  authorship  without  adding  a  word  to  the  liter- 
ature of  their  country  worthy  of  note  ?  It  is  accomplished  by 
unflagging  assiduity  in  the  system  of  puffing.  To  puff  and  to 
get  one's  self  puffed  have  become  different  branches  of  a  new 

1This  proves  efficacious,  since  Mr.  Booker,  though  "an  Aristides  among  re- 
viewers," cannot  resist  the  bait  of  a  favorable  notice  of  his  Tale,  "even  though 
written  by  the  hand  of  a  female  literary  charlatan,  and  he  would  have  no  com- 
punction as  to  repaying  the  service  by  fulsome  praise  in  The  Literary  Chronicle." 


TYPES  265 

profession.    Alas,  me!    I  wish  I  might  find  a  class  open  in  which 
lessons  could  be  taken  by  such  a  poor  tyro  as  myself. " 

As  for  herself,  she  expects  ruthless  severity,  but  trusts 
that  her  work  has  some  merits.  In  any  case,  no  amount  of 
editorial  flagellating  can  discount  her  personal  admiration 
for  this  particular  editor.  Truly,  she  is  all  things  to  all 
men, — a  policy,  however,  for  which  she  might  claim  a 
certain  Scriptural  precedent  of  high  authority. 


PART  IV 
CONCLUSIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

RELATIONSHIPS 

To  call  a  man  a  satirist  or  a  satirical  writer  is  to  say 
something  about  him,  certainly.  It  is,  however,  a  piece 
of  information  which  can  be  nothing  more  than  a  curiosity 
of  literature  so  long  as  it  remains  an  isolated  fact.  Al- 
though we  are  for  the  time  being  interested  in  a  group  of 
novelists  primarily  as  satirists,  we  cannot  even  under- 
stand them  as  such,  much  less  come  to  any  fuller  com- 
prehension, unless  we  also  view  the  satirists  as  novelists, 
as  artists,  as  human  beings. 

These  relationships  extend  on  the  internal  side,  so  to 
speak,  into  such  matters  as  quantity,  quality,  and  range; 
and  on  the  external,  into  the  larger  realms  of  the  two  sa- 
tiric factors — criticism  and  humor — and  thence  into  the 
neighboring  domains  of  pessimism  and  tragedy,  comedy 
and  wit,  realism  and  romanticism,  emotion  and  intellect, 
and  idealism.  In  none  of  these  things,  of  course,  can  we  do 
more  than  indicate  briefly  the  effect  they  may  have  upon 
satire,  or  satire  upon  them. 

Those  who  have  furnished  the  largest  amount  of  sat- 
ire,— proportionately,  as  it  happens,  both  to  their  own  to- 
tal production,  and  to  the  satiric  production  of  others, — 
are  Peacock,  Dickens,  Butler,  and  Meredith.  But  when 
it  comes  to  quality, — tested  by  subtlety  of  wit,  self-com- 
mand, justice  as  to  objects,  and  moderation  of  amount, — 
the  only  one  to  remain  on  the  preeminent  list  is  Meredith. 

At  the  other  extreme  we  find  the  same  overlapping  as 

269 


27O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

to  quantity  and  quality.  The  smallest  satiric  amounts 
come  from  Bronte,  Reade,  and  Gaskell,  but,  while  the  first 
two  are  correspondingly  inferior  in  quality,  the  last  is 
promoted  several  degrees  up  the  qualitative  scale,  by  rea- 
son of  her  lack  of  flourish,  and  the  deft  sureness  of  her 
touch.  The  low  place  she  leaves  vacant  belongs  by  desert 
to  Kingsley,  who,  like  Bronte  and  Reade,  never  learned 
to  solve  the  satirist's  problem, — to  trifle  without  being 
triyiaL  Frivolity,  to  be  sure,  was  never  a  besetting  sin  of 
the  Victorians,  but  in  their  earnestness  they  were  prone  to 
the  opposite  fault,  and  are  occasionally  caught  beating  a 
big  satiric  drum  when  softer  notes  would  be  more  effective. 
Neither  are  any  on  the  entire  list  guilty  of  downright  in- 
sincerity, but  the  less  successful  ones  are  sometimes  be- 
trayed by  partisan  zeal,  acrimonious  temper,  or  unsound 
judgment,  into  more  or  less  injustice.  This  is  true  to  some 
extent  of  Peacock,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray,  as  well  as  of 
those  just  mentioned. 

In  range  of  interest  Dickens  easily  leads,  followed  by 
Meredith  and  Trollope.  From  Oliver  'Twist  to  Edwin 
Droody  this  satirist  spreads  his  attacks  over  more  ground, 
and  lays  about  him  in  more  different  directions  than  does 
any  one  else.  With  the  exception  of  the  Church,  no  pos- 
sible word  of  importance  is  omitted  from  his  satiric  lexi- 
con. His  tastes  in  the  ridiculous  are  catholic,  and  scarcely 
a  satirizible  subject  languishes  under  his  neglect.  The 
other  writers  are  more  or  less  specialists  in  their  chosen 
fields. 

As  to  the  effect  on  the  satiric  product  of  a  versatile  mind, 
a  prolific  pen,  or  preoccupation  with  other  affairs,  no  de- 
duction seems  possible.  Lytton,  Kingsley,  and  Butler 
were  versatile  and  prolific  both,  to  a  degree.  Thackeray 
and  Trollope  were  prolific  within  a  more  limited  range. 


RELATIONSHIPS  27! 

Those  most  exclusively  novelists  were  Disraeli,  Dickens, 
and  Bronte,  but  those  to  produce  the  most  novels  were 
Trollope,  Lytton,  Dickens,  and  Meredith.  Lytton  and 
Disraeli  had  more  outside  interests  and  underwent  more 
varieties  of  social  and  political  experience  than  any  of 
their  successors,  though  Trollope  and  Kingsley  had  occu- 
pations and  avocations  outside  those  of  literature. 

All  these  internal  relationships  have  some  significance 
but  much  less  than  the  external  ones.  They  deal  primarily 
with  accomplishments,  which  have  their  value  chiefly  as 
emanating  from  character  and  so  defining  it,  whereas  the 
various  elements  of  which  character  itself  is  composed  are 
in  the  nature  of  vital  statistics  in  the  life  spiritual.  Of  these 
elements  those  most  closely  related  to  satire  are  naturally 
its  constituents,  though  they  may  exist  independently  of 
it.  Although  satire  is  a  form  of  criticism,  it  does  not 
follow  that  those  writers  who  are  most  consistently  satir- 
ical have  the  most  widely  or  deeply  critical  attitude  to- 
ward life  in  general.  Such  fundamental  criticism  branches 
out  into  two  philosophies:  the  hopeless,  or  pessimistic, 
shading  off  into  flippant  cynicism  or  bitter  misanthropy; 
and  the  hopeful,  or  unsentimentally  optimistic,  which  is 
the  basis  of  all  dynamic  idealism.  For  whithersoever  the 
idealist  may  tend,  he  certainly  cannot  start  from  a  point 
of  uncritical  satisfaction  with  things  as  they  are.  Locke 
may  have  made  some  errors  regarding  the  human  under- 
standing, but  he  was  eminently  correct  in  identifying  the 
stimulus  to  action,  not  with  a  vision  of  fulfilled  desire, 
but  with  the  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go.  We 
must  be  driven  out  before  we  can  be  led  on,  but  the  driv- 
ing process  once  being  inaugurated,  we  make  it  more  dig- 
nified and  endurable  by  conceiving  a  goal  upon  which  our 
endeavors  may  be  focussed. 


272       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

To  the  philosophy  of  pessimism  no  Victorian  novelist 
was  addicted.  The  phase  of  it  current  in  the  period  just 
preceding  was  met  by  a  prolonged,  skeptical,  British 
chuckle,  beginning  with  our  first  novelist,  who  represents, 
indeed,  in  his  own  history  the  reaction  from  pensive  mel- 
ancholy to  humorous  common  sense.  Peacock  is  speaking 
of  being  unhappy,  and  adds: 1 

"To  have  a  reason  for  being  so  would  be  exceedingly  common- 
place: tpjbe  j^p  without  any  is  the  province  of  genius :  the  art  of 
being  miserable  for  misery's  sake,  has  been  brought  to  great  per- 
fection in  our  days;  and  the  ancient  Odessey,  which  held  forth 
a  shining  example  of  the  endurance  of  real  misfortune,  will  give 
place  to  a  modern  one,  setting  out  a  more  instructive  picture 
of  querulous  impatience  under  imaginary  evils." 

Lytton  shared  the  fondness  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray 
for  pathos,  but  none  of  them  went  further  into  the  anat- 
omy of  melancholy  than  some  such  comment  as, — "  Dig 
but  deep  enough,  and  under  all  earth  runs  water,  under 
all  life  runs  grief."  2 

Thackeray  muses  on  the  theme  of  aspiration  in  a  whim- 
sically pensive  vein.  Between  the  questions  and  the  ex- 
clamation of  the  following  excerpt  are  several  instances 
of  disappointment,  related  in  his  jocular  mock-sympa- 
thetic tone: 3 

"Succeeding?  What  is  the  great  use  of  succeeding?  Failing? 
Where  is  the  great  harm?  *  *  *  Psha!  These  things  appear 
as  naught — when  Time  passes — Time  the  consoler — Time  the 

1  Nightmare  Abbey,  78. 

2  What  Will  He  Do  with  It?    Preface  to  Chap.  IV,  Bk.  VI. 

3  Sketches  and  Travels:  in  London,  268.    Cf.  Taine's  comment  that  Thackeray 
"does  as  a  novelist  what  Hobbes  does  as  a  philosopher.    Almost  everywhere, 
when  he  describes  fine  sentiments,  he  derives  them  from  an  ugly  source. "    Hist, 
of  Eng.  Lit.,  IV,  188. 


RELATIONSHIPS  273 

anodyne — Time  the  grey  calm  satirist,  whose  sad  smile  seems 
to  say,  Look,  0  man,  at  the  vanity  of  the  objects  you  pursue,  and 
of  yourself  who  pursue  them." 

In  the  essay  Of  Adversity  Bacon  says, — "We  see  in 
needleworks  and  embroideries  it  is  more  pleasing  to  have 
a  lively  work  upon  a  sad  and  solemn  ground,  than  to  have 
a  dark  and  melancholy  work  upon  a  lightsome  ground." 
In  so  far  as  this  can  be  granted,  and  applied  to  the  novel, 
it  would  explain  why  George  Eliot  is  more  pleasing  than 
Thackeray,  for  that  is  just  the  difference  between  them. 
Athwart  the  brilliant  background  of  Vanity  Fair  fall  the 
sinister  shadows  of  the  sordid  little  Puppets  of  the  Show, — 
"  the  bullies,  the  bucks,  the  knaves,  the  quacks,  the  yokels, 
the  tinselled  dancers,  the  poor  old  rouged  tumblers,  and 
the  light-fingered  folk  operating  on  the  pockets  of  the  rest." 
Behind  Hayslope,  Raveloe,  and  Middlemarch,  the  Floss 
and  the  Arno,  hangs  the  curtain  of  Destiny,  somber  with 
pain,  drudgery,  sin  and  its  wages.  Yet  over  it  plays  a 
light  shed  around  the  characters  as  they  appear  upon  the 
stage.  It  shines  from  Mrs.  Poyser's  kitchen  and  Mr.  Ir- 
wine's  study,  from  the  parlors  of  the  sisters  nee  Dodson 
and  the  Garth  family,  from  Celia  Chettam's  nursery,  the 
bar  at  the  Rainbow,  and  the  shops  of  Florence.  Together 
these  actors  weave  a  pattern  of  mirth  and  amusement, — 
the  incorrigible  human  defiance  of  the  ache  of  life  and  the 
agony  of  death. 

Dickens,  (upon  whose  Hogarthian  gloom  Taine  lays 
great  stress),  Reade,  and  Kingsley  are  as  critical  of  society 
in  the  larger  sense  as  Thackeray  is  in  the  smaller,  and  as 
Eliot  and  Trollope  are  of  human  nature.  Meredith  has 
no  illusions  about  any  of  these  things,  and  Butler  comes 
nearer  than  any  to  an  unqualified^gssimisnL.  But  even 


274       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

he  does  not  attain  it.  They  all  escape  through  the  avenue 
of  satire,  sometimes  reinforced  by  action, — both  being 
efficacious  means  of  getting  melancholia  out  of  the  system. 
Nowhere  does  Browning  speak  more  as  a  Britisher  than 
when  he  declares  rage  to  be  the  right  thing  in  the  main, 
and  acquiescence  the  vain  and  futile. 

Pessimism,  to  be  consistent,  would  express  itself  in  terms 
of  tragedy.  Out  of  approximately  one  hundred  Victorian 
novels  of  the  realistic  type, — for  romantic  tragedy  cannot 
be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  writer's  philosophy, — less  than 
ten  per  cent  can  be  classified  as  tragic  in  outcome;  and  in 
none  of  these  is  the  catastrophe  inclusive,  overwhelming, 
or  a  perversion  of  justice.  Of  these  the  largest  proportion 
belongs  to  Eliot  and  Meredith,  but  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  is 
the  solitary  complete  tragedy.  Rhoda  Fleming  and  Middle- 
march  are  almost  as  truly  tales  of  comic  tragedians  as  Rom- 
ola,  Richard  Feverel,  and  An  Amazing  Marriage  are  of 
tragic  comedians.  On  the  other  hand,  tragedy  of  this  miti- 
gated sort  is  not  inconsistent  with  idealism,  which  in  turn 
is  the  constructive  side  of  criticism.  While  it  is  too  much, 
as  Lytton  reminds  us  in  Kenelm  Chillingly,  to  expect  both 
critical  and  constructive  ability  to  be  conspicuous  in  the 
same  individual,  nevertheless  the  criticism  which  is  con- 
tent to  note  a  deflection  from  an  ideal  without  even  a  tacit 
recognition  of  the  ideal  deflected  from,  is  mere  childish 
fretting  over  the  personally  irritating.  Of  this  there  is  lit- 
tle in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Victorians  may  have 
had  some  of  the  unpardonable  disregard  for  reality  of 
which  they  have  been  accused,1  but  they  never  could  be 
accused  of  a  disregard  for  ideality.  None  of  the  novelists, 

1  "Of  this  national  disease,  this  indifference  to  reality,  the  main  bulk  of  nine- 
teenth century  English  fiction  has  died  already  or  must  soon  be  dead."  Gosse: 
Eng.  Lit.  in  the  Nineteenth  Cent.  221. 


RELATIONSHIPS  275 

indeed,  announced  an  ecstatic  premonition  of  some  far-off, 
divine  event  toward  which  the  whole  creation  moves;  but 
they  would  all  have  asserted,  even  if  under  their  breath, 
— Eppur  si  muove.  This  assertion  is  none  the  less  emphatic 
and  possibly  the  more  artistic,  by  being  made  indirectly, 
through  dramatic  presentation  of  characters.  Harley 
L'Estrange,  Egremont,  Mr.  Hale,  Mrs.  Brandon,  Mark 
Tapley,  Sidney  Carton,  Mr.  Eden,  Jane  Eyre,  Alton 
Locke,  Mr.  Harding,  Dinah  Morris,  Dorothea  Brooke, 
Austin  Feverel,  Vittoria,  Beauchamp, — these  all  testify 
in  their  various  ways,  by  noble  aspiration,  generous  self- 
effacement,  sensitive  response  to  duty,  devotion  to  prin- 
ciple, courage  in  daring  and  in  endurance,  to  the  existence 
of  a  something  in  the  human  soul  that  is  stemming  the  tide 
of  its  selfishness,  cowardice,  and  cruelty,  and  may  in  time 
work  out  a  salvation  for  the  race. 

A  recognition  of  ideality  does  not  imply,  however,  a 
lack  of  proper  concern  for  reality,  or  the  reverse.  To  make 
the  two  diametrical  opposites  is  to  confuse  issues.  As 
Meredith  says, — "Between  realism  and  idealism  there  is 
no  natural  conflict.  This  completes  that."  He  adds  the 
caution  that  only  the  great  can  be  truly  idealistic,  and  con- 
cludes,— "One  may  find  as  much  amusement  in  a  kaleido- 
scope as  in  a  merely  idealistic  writer."  1  The  direct  coun- 
terpart to  realism  is  romanticism;  and  the  Victorians  did 
not  scruple  to  make  free  use  of  this  alliance  with  the  im- 
probable, whenever  the  actual  would  fail  to  secure  the  de- 
sired dramatic  effect.  Coincidences  abound, — convenient 
returns  of  the  absent  and  departures  of  the  troublesome, 
discoveries  of  kinship  and  inheritance  of  fortunes,  narrow 
escapes  and  astonishing  reunions.  Yet  there  is  also  some 
conscious  defense  of  the  practice.  Lytton  has  one  of  his 

1  Letters,  I,   156. 


276       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

characters,  confessing  her  disappointment  in  the  fiction 
of  the  time  (the  early  thirties),  conclude, —  1 

"These  novelists  make  the  last  mistake  you  would  suppose 
them  guilty  of,  they  have  not  enough  romance  in  them  to  paint 
the  truths  of  society.  *  *  *  By  the  way,  how  few  know  what 
natural  romance  is:  so  that  you  feel  the  ideas  in  a  book  or  play 
are  true  and  faithful  to  the  characters  they  are  ascribed  to,  why 
mind  whether  the  incidents  are  probable?" 

Trollope  reinforces  the  idea: 2 

"No  novel  is  worth  anything,  for  the  purpose  either  of  trag- 
edy or  comedy,  unless  the  reader  can  sympathise  with  the  char- 
acters whose  names  he  finds  upon  the  pages.  *  *  *  If 
there  be  such  truth,  I  do  not  know  that  a  novel  can  be  too  sensa- 
tional." 

And  Meredith  expresses  on  at  least  two  occasions  his 
opinion  of  the  value  of  realism.  An  embittered  authoress 
determined  to  make  her  next  novel  a  reflex  of  her  bitter- 
ness. Considering  that  type,  she — 3 

"*  *  *  mused  on  their  soundings  and  probings  of  poor 
humanity,  which  the  world  accepts  as  the  very  bottom-truth 
if  their  dredge  brings  up  sheer  refuse  of  the  abominable.  The 
world  imagines  those  to  be  at  our  nature's  depths  who  are  im- 
pudent enough  to  expose  its  muddy  shallows.  *  *  *  it  may 
count  on  popularity,  a  great  repute  for  penetration.  It  is  true 
of  its  kind,  though  the  dredging  of  nature  is  the  miry  form  of 
art.  When  it  flourishes  we  may  be  assured  we  have  been  over- 
enamelling  the  higher  forms." 

1  Godolphin,  106-7.    Cf.  Pelham,  1 06  ff.  for  a  long  discussion  of  the  novel. 

8  Autobiography,  206.  But  on  another  page  he  describes  the  sense  of  intimate 
reality  he  had  of  his  beloved  Barsetshire,  and  how  vivid  was  the  mental  map 
he  had  made  of  it. 

3  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  275. 


RELATIONSHIPS  277 

In  another  volume  he  is  describing  the  humorist's  idea 
of  it:1 

"I  conceive  him  to  indicate  that  the  realistic  method  of  a  con- 
scientious transcription  of  all  the  visible,  and  a  repetition  of  all 
the  audible,  is  mainly  accountable  for  our  present  branfulness, 
and  for  that  prolongation  of  the  vasty  and  the  noisy,  out  of 
which,  as  from  an  undrained  fen,  steams  the  malady  of  same- 
ness, our  modern  malady." 

It  might  seem  that  a  romanticism  so  prevalent  and 
avowed  would  not  be  the  best  medium  for  satire,  which  is 
supposed  to  be  realistic  in  the  sense  that  it  deals  with  the 
actual.  But  since  satire  is  directed  against  persons  rather 
than  circumstances,  it  is  in  no  danger  so  long  as  the  ro- 
mancing is  confined  to  the  situations,  and  the  characters 
are  kept  to  the  plane  of  reality, — as  is  the  case,  with  a  few 
easily  recognizable  exceptions,  in  the  Victorian  novel. 
That  the  difficulty  of  truthfulness  is  one  excuse  for  indul- 
gence in  the  easier  romantic  method,  is  admitted  by  Eliot: 2 

"The  pencil  is  conscious  of  a  delightful  facility  in  drawing  a 
griffin — the  longer  the  claws  and  the  larger  the  wings,  the  better; 
but  that  marvellous  facility  which  we  mistook  for  genius  is  apt 
to  forsake  us  when  we  want  to  draw  a  real,  unexaggerated  lion." 

But  in  Victorian  fiction  neither  griffins  nor  lions  are  in 
much  evidence.  The  total  personnel  is  fairly  well  sym- 
bolized (with  the  addition  of  a  few  more  of  the  nobler 
brutes  than  are  admitted  by  Thackeray)  in  the  Overture 
to  fbe  Newcomes,  wherein  the  "farrago  of  old  fables1' 
pictures  a  crow,  a  frog,  an  ox,  a  wolf,  a  fox,  an  owl,  and  a 
few  lambs,  but  only  the  skin  of  a  lion, — and  that  serving 
as  cloak  for  a  donkey.  The  romantico-realistic  solution, 
therefore,  forms  probably  the  most  satisfactory  base  for  the 

1  The  Egoist,  2.  2  Adam  Bede,  I,  268. 


278       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

dissolving  of  the  critical-humorous  acid  and  the  precipita- 
tion of  satire.  It  secures  a  maximum  of  pungency  with  a 
minimum  of  flatness,  and  is  perfectly  safe  to  take. 

As  satire  ramifies  on  the  critical  side  into  pessimism, 

tragedy,  idealism,  and  the  cognate  matters  of  romanticism 

and  realism,  so  it  extends  on  the  humorous  into  the  comic, 

the  witty,  and  the  philosophic  amusement  known  as  a 

i  sense  of  humor. 

Of  those  who  launch  their  satire  on  the  comic  current, 
Dickens  is  again  first.  He  is,  as  Taine  remarks,  the  most 
railing  and  the  most  jocose  of  English  authors.  Speaking 
of  his  sportiveness,  the  French  critic  adds  that  "he  is  not 
the  more  happy  for  all  that,"  and  uses  him  to  point  the 
double  moral:  that  "English  wit  consists  in  saying  very 
jocular  things  in  a  solemn  manner,"  and  "The  chief  ele- 
ment of  the  English  character  is  its  want  of  happiness."  * 
This  last  may  account  for  the  fact  that  none  of  the  novel- 
ists is  abreast  of  Dickens  in  fun-making.  Indeed,  the  only 
others  to  deserve  mention  are  Lytton,  Trollope,  and 
Thackeray,  and  the  last  in  his  extra-novel  productions. 
Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  are  most  endowed  with  wit 
are  Meredith,  Butler,  and  Peacock,  with  George  Eliot  not 
quite  to  be  omitted.  More  important  than  comicality  or 
wit  is  the  sense  of  humor,  for  while  they  are  largely  in  the 
nature  of  devices  whereby  the  object  is  made  ex  post  facto 
ludicrous  to  others,  it  is  the  quality  which  enables  the  critic 
himself  to  perceive  the  absurdity,  and  is  thus  the  sine 
qua  non  of  his  being  a  satirist  at  all,  It  is  Meredith  who 
excels  here,  and  this  excellence,  combined  with  his  gift  of 
wit  and  his  restrained  use  of  the  comic,  lifts  him  to  a  posi- 
tion of  superiority  on  the  humorous  as  well  as  the  critical 
side.  George  Eliot  also  has  the  sense  of  proportion  which 

1  History  of  English  Literature,  V,  140. 


RELATIONSHIPS  279 

is  the  basis  of  humor,  and  so,  to  a  less  degree,  have  Trol- 
lope  and  Mrs.  Gaskell.  At  the  other  extreme  stand  Reade, 
Kingsley,  and  Charlotte  Bronte,  with  very  little  perspec- 
tive or  artistic  detachment.  The  unfortunate  thing  about 
them  is  that  they  did  not  dare  be  as  serious  in  expression 
as  they  were  in  temperament.  Their  humor  does  not  bub- 
ble up  from  a  natural  spring  but  is  manipulated  through 
an  artificial  fountain,  with  varying  effects  of  spontaneity. 
Lytton,  Disraeli,  and  Thackeray  had  some  youthful  smart- 
ness of  this  sort  to  outgrow,  and  to  a  large  extent  they  did 
it.  But  these  others  never  did;  and  Reade  especially  has 
moments  of  a  truculent  pertness  and  shrill  sarcasm  that 
do  an  injustice  to  the  really  fine  spirit  of  his  work. 

That  there  are  more  of  these  fitful  gleams  and  partial 
visions  than  of  an  inclusive  view  of  the  cosmos,  is  not  as- 
tonishing. The  wide,  clear  outlook  requires  not  only  an 
infinite  radius  but  a  lens  of  powerful  magnitude.  To 
train  a  small  telescope  on  a  remote  object  achieves  noth- 
ing. None  of  the  novelists  evinces  the  cosmic  perspec-y^/ 
tive  that  reports  back  in  terms  of  a  universe.  That, 
indeed,  is  the  function  of  the  seer, — poet,  prophet,  or  phi- 
losopher. But  if  only  these  see  life  in  all  its  panoramic 
vastness,  there  are  others  who  at  least  splash  at  a  ten- 
league  canvas,  and  insist  on  having  real  figures  to  draw 
from,  whether  saint  or  sinner.  These  have  no  use  for  the 
trivial  and  frivolous,  yet  they  know  better  than  to  scorn  the 
small  and  unpretentious.  They  delight  in  spaciousness, 
but  are  not  enamored  with  mere  bulk  or  nebulous  vague- 
ness. Such  are  our  satiric  novelists  at  their  best,  those 
among  them  ranking  highest  whose  philosophical  humor 
is  greatest  in  proportion  to  their  love  of  the  comic,  and  who 
are  granted  sufficient  wit  to  transmute  their  perception 
of  the  absurd  into  effective  expression. 


28O       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

The  value  of  a  sense  of  humor  lies  largely  in  a  certain 
duality  about  it,  in  that  it  springs  from  the  intellectual 
side  of  one's  nature  and  is  reinforced  by  the  emotional. 
It  thus  brings  into  play  both  of  the  supplementary  factors, 
and  in  so  doing  tests  them  both.  To  have  a  sense  of  humor 
is  an  intellectual  asset,  but  the  enjoyment  of  it,  which  is 
inseparable  from  its  possession,  is  an  emotional  state. 
This  combination,  as  well  as  the  order  of  procedure,  af- 
fects the  quality  of  the  resulting  satire.  The  best  satir- 
ists are  those  most  fully  developed  in  head  and  heart,  with 
the  proviso  that  they  keep  the  latter  subordinate  to  the 
former,  by  making  reason  the  final  tribunal,  and  award- 
ing the  decision  to  intellectual  judgment  rather  than  emo- 
tional prejudice. 

Among  our  novelists  the  greatest  in  other  things  is 
greatest  in  this  also.  The  most  generous  endowment 
along  both  lines,  and  the  nicest  balance  between  them 
is  Meredith's.  With  him  are  again  associated  Eliot  and 
Butler.  Nor  is  it  by  accident  that  we  find  the  lowest  ex- 
treme of  the  list  still  occupied  by  the  same  representatives. 
The  test  of  course  is  one  of  control.  It  is  not  that  Reade, 
Kingsley,  and  Charlotte  Bronte  are  deficient  in  intel- 
lection. They  do  considerable  thinking  and  sometimes 
reach  conclusions  that  are  rational  and  true.  But  when 
truth  and  rationality  do  dominate,  it  is  by  a  happy  good 
fortune  rather  than  the  inevitability  that  marks  the  ratio- 
cination of  a  capable  mind.  This  last  cannot  guarantee 
infallibility,  to  be  sure,  but  the  errors  are  reduced  to  a  min- 
imum, and  moreover  left  open  to  correction.  This  is  the 
case  with  Meredith,  Eliot,  and  Butler,  in  whom  a  warm 
and  sincere  emotion  is  directed  by  the  light  of  reason. 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  that  Butler  ran  more  to  head 
than  heart;  but  in  this  as  in  other  things  he  was  like  Swift, 


RELATIONSHIPS  28l 

having  the  faculty  of  stating  in  cold  logic  what  he  had  con- 
ceived in  hot  wrath.  In  such  a  temperament  the  feelings 
are  more  likely  to  be  turned  against  those  responsible  for 
misery  than  toward  the  victims,  thus  producing  a  nega- 
tive effect,  with  the  positive  side  left  to  our  inference.  The 
only  one  whose  work  is  entirely  unemotional  is  Peacock, 
and  even  he  waxes  warm  over  the  exploitation  of  the  help- 
less, and  the  crimes  committed  in  the  name  of  Progress. 
Aside  from  this  he  shines  with  a  hard  mental  brilliance, — 
which,  be  it  said,  does  not  insure  soundness  of  viewpoint, 
as  no  one  on  the  whole  list  can  surpass  him  in  prejudice 
and  injustice. 

George  Eliot,  admitted  by  all  to  have  a  better  intellec- 
tual equipment  than  any  of  her  predecessors,  admired 
above  others  by  Meredith  because  her  fiction  was  "the 
fruit  of  a  well-trained  mind,"  herself  says,  "Our  good  de- 
pends on  the  quality  and  breadth  of  our  emotion."  1 
And  again,  "There  is  no  escaping  the  fact  that  want  of 
sympathy  condemns  us  to  a  corresponding  stupidity."  2 
This  realization  that  mental  inertness  itself  is  the  result 
of  callous  or  defective  emotion,  and  that  these  two  ele- 
ments are  not  only  inseparable  but  mutually  dependent, 
is  one  secret  of  the  fine  quality  of  her  satire. 3  It  is  the 
sheen  on  the  surface  of  a  deep  current  of  sympathetic  com- 

1  Middlemarch,  II,  275.    In  this  story  also  occurs  the  exquisite  passage  on  the 
theme  of  the  second  citation  above:  "If  we  had  a  keen  feeling  and  vision  of  all 
ordinary  human  life,  it  would  be  like  seeing  the  grass  grow  and  hearing  the 
squirrel's  heart  beat,  and  we  should  die  of  that  roar  which  lies  on  the  other  side 
of  silence.    As  it  is,  the  quickest  of  us  walk  about  well  wadded  with  stupidity." 

2  Daniel  Deronda,  III,  79. 

3  One  of  her  biographers,  G.  W.  Cooke,  evidently  holding  to  the  old  idea  of 
satire,  makes  the  opposite  deduction,  that  "she  is  too  much  in  sympathy  with 
human  nature  to  laugh  at  its  follies  and  its  weaknesses.    *    *    *    The  foibles 
of  the  world  she  cannot  treat  in  the  vein  of  the  satirist. "    Not  if  this  vein  be 
restricted  to  the  Juvenalian  and  Popeian  types,  certainly. 


282        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

prehension.  Never  does  she  forget  or  cease  to  commiserate 
the  great  predicament  of  the  human  race,  condemned  to 
make  bricks  without  straw,  under  a  hard  taskmaster,  with 
little  prospect  of  reward  to  encourage  perseverance  or  sat- 
isfy an  outraged  sense  of  justice.  Yet  she  is  able  to  apply 
a  few  satiric  goads, — not  to  the  taskmaster,  for  he  directs 
from  behind  the  veil  and  is  not  subject  to  human  asper- 
sions, nor  to  the  weak  or  the  blundering,  but  to  the 
shirkers,  the  selfish,  and  those  who  demand  more  wage 
than  a  fair  return  for  work  done  as  well  as  possible  under 
the  circumstances. 
In  1902  Meredith  wrote  to  his  daughter-in-law: 1 

"You  have  a  liking  for  little  phrases;  I  send  you  three: — Love 
is  the  renunciation  of  self.  Passion  is  noble  strength  on  fire. 
Fortitude  is  the  one  thing  for  which  we  may  pray,  because  with- 
out it  we  are  unable  to  bear  the  Truth." 

Here  we  have  in  juxtaposition,  quite  unconsciously  no 
doubt,  his  obiter  dicta  on  emotion  and  intellect.  In  many 
places  he  had  already  dramatized  them.  His  egoists — Sir 
Austin,  Sir  Willoughby,  Wilfred  Pole  2 — are  satirized  be- 
cause they  conceived  love  as  self-assertion  instead  of  re- 
nunciation; his  epicures  and  snobs — Adrian  Harley,  Ed- 
ward Blancove,  Ferdinand  Laxley — because  their  passion 
was  neither  noble  nor  truly  strong;  his  sentimentalists  of 
every  description,  because  they  neither  realized  that  Truth 
is  the  highest  thing  a  man  may  keep,  nor,  whether  high  or 

1  Letters,  II,  535. 

2  A  description  of  this  youth  concludes  with  a  most  significant  epigram:  "He 
was  one  of  those  who  delight  to  dally  with  gentleness  and  faith,     !  but 
the  mere  suspicion  of  coquetry  and  indifference  plunged  him  into  a  fury  of  jeal- 
ous wrathfulness,  and  tossed  so  desirable  an  image  of  beauty  before  him  that 
his  mad  thirst  to  embrace  it  seemed  love.     By  our  manner  of  loving  we  are 
known."      Vittoria,  378. 


RELATIONSHIPS  283 

not,  would  they  purchase  it  at  the  price  of  a  disturbance  to 
their  equanimity.  They  might  pray  for  the  truth  to  be 
pleasant,  but  never  for  fortitude  to  endure  it  if  it  were 
otherwise.  The  apparent  pessimism  underlying  the  im- 
plication that  the  Truth  is  such  as  to  demand  courage  for 
facing  it,  is  counterbalanced  by  Diana's  exclamation, 
"Who  can  really  think,  and  not  think  hopefully?" 

None  of  Meredith's  novels  lacks  an  intellectual  theme, 
and  it  was  this  that  he  himself  regarded  as  most  impor- 
tant. In  the  very  last  one  he  says : 


i 


"But  the  melancholy,  the  pathos  of  it,  *  *  *  have  been 
sacrificed  in  the  vain  effort  to  render  events  as  consequent  to 
your  understanding  as  a  piece  of  logic,  through  an  exposure  of 
character!" 

At  the  same  time  he  surpasses  all  others  in  the  treatment 
of  love.  Contemporary  readers,  who  had  had  to  be  con- 
tent with  David  and  Dora,  Pen  and  Laura,  Rochester  and 
Jane,  Adam  and  Dinah,  were  vouchsafed  a  revelation, — 
which,  however,  they  apparently  did  not  at  once  appre- 
ciate,— in  Richard  and  Lucy,  Evan  and  Rose,  Redworth 
and  Diana,  Dartrey  and  Nesta.  To  them  all  Meredith 
would  say  approvingly  what  he  said  warningly  to  a  more 
unfortunate  cavalier, — "You  may  love,  and  warmly  love, 
so  long  as  you  are  honest.  Do  not  offend  reason."  2  And 
in  them  all  he  illustrates  the  higher  hedonism  voiced  by 
Lady  Dunstane  to  her  Tony,  though  from  the  negative 

1  An  Amazing  Marriage,  511.    He  adds,  "Character  must  ever  be  a  mystery, 
only  to  be  explained  in  some  degree  by  conduct;  and  that  is  very  dependent 
upon  accident." 

2  The  Egoist,  4.    It  is  in  this  connection  that  comedy  "watches  over  sentimen- 
talism  with  a  birch-rod."    And  it  is  at  the  end  of  the  same  story  that  she  is 
"grave  and  sisterly"  toward  Clara  and  Vernon,  though  when  she  regards  cer- 
tain others,  "she  compresses  her  lips." 


284       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

side, — "The  mistake  of  the  world  is  to  think  happiness 
possible  to  the  senses."  1 

In  addition  to  these,  Meredith  gives  us  pictures  of  other 
than  the  purely  romantic  devotion.  There  is  the  brood- 
ing tenderness  of  maturity  for  childhood  and  youth:  of 
Sir  Austin,  Lady  Blandish,  Wentworth,  and  Mrs.  Berry, 
for  Richard  and  later,  Lucy;  of  Clara  Middleton  for  Cross- 
jay;  of  Rosamund  for  Beauchamp.  This  relationship  is 
enhanced  by  a  more  intimate  comradeship  in  the  case  of 
Lady  Jocelyn  and  Rose,  of  Natalia  Radnor  and  Nesta,  and, 
in  a  happy-go-lucky  fashion,  of  Roy  Richmond  and  Harry. 
Nesta  and  Rose  illustrate  respectively  Meredith's  genuine 
and  exquisite  sentiment,  and  the  omnipresent  common 
sense  which  preserved  it  from  sentimentality.  When 
Nesta  felt  the  first  chill  of  the  shadow  on  her  life, —  2 

"She  sent  forth  her  flights  of  stories  in  elucidation  of  the  hid- 
den; and  they  were  like  white  bird  after  bird  winging  to  covert 
beneath  a  thundercloud;  until  her  breast  ached  for  the  voice 
of  the  thunder:  harsh  facts:  sure  as  she  was  of  never  losing  her 
filial  hold  of  the  beloved." 

When  Rose  determined  to  appeal  their  case  to  her 
mother,  she  said  to  Evan, —  3 

"You  know  she  is  called  a  philosopher;  nobody  knows  how 
deep-hearted  she  is,  though.  My  mother  is  true  as  steel. 
*  *  *  When  I  say  kindness,  I  don't  mean  any  'Oh,  my 
child/  and  tears  and  kisses  and  maundering,  you  know.  You 
mustn't  mind  her  thinking  me  a  little  fool." 

1  Diana,  429.  This  is  where  Meredith  and  Browning  are  at  one; — not  only  in 
the  obvious  resemblance  of  a  cramped  and  obscure  style,  but  in  the  agreement 
as  to  a  fundamental  idea — that  the  justification  of  love  lies  in  its  intellectual 
companionship  and  spiritual  inspiration. 

a  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  340. 

3  Evan  Harrington,  343. 


RELATIONSHIPS  285 

Then  there  is  the  sisterly  attachment  between  Rhoda 
and  Dahlia  Fleming  that  leads  Rhoda's  puritanic  nature 
into  a  dictatorial  fanaticism  as  disastrous  in  its  results  as 
Sir  Austin's;  there  is  friendship  masculine  between  Beau- 
champ  and  Dr.  Shrapnel;  and  friendship  feminine  between 
Lady  Dunstane  and  Diana.  It  is  not  that  Meredith  has 
a  monopoly  on  the  portrayal  of  human  affection.  Lytton 
has  to  his  credit  the  Chillinglys  1  and  the  Caxtons;  Gas- 
kell  has  the  Gibsons;  Dickens,  Amy  Dorrit,  and  Joe 
Gargary;  Bronte,  Caroline  Helstone  and  her  mother;  Trol- 
lope,  Lily  Dale  and  hers;  in  Barry  Lyndon,  Thackeray  gives 
us  a  base  soul  redeemed  by  love  for  a  child,  and  in  Colonel 
Newcome,  Helen  Pendennis,  and  Amelia  Osborne,  he 
presents  a  rather  one-sided  devotion,  as  does  Eliot  in 
Mrs.  Transome, — though  the  latter  does  not  feel  called 
upon  to  exclaim,  "By  Heaven,  it  is  pitiful,  the  bootless 
love  of  women  for  children  in  Vanity  Fair!"  But  it  is 
true  that  Meredith  through  the  richness  of  his  well- 
rounded  nature  was  more  able  than  the  others  to  lift  emo- 
tion fearlessly  to  a  height  of  intensity,  preserved  there 
from  any  danger  of  a  fall  into  bathos,  because  supported 
by  intellect  on  the  one  hand  and  humor  on  the  other. 

Any  final  alignment  must  be  left  flexible,  because  of  the 
numerous  factors  in  the  test.  Writers  may  excel  in  one  way 
or  another.  When,  however,  the  same  author  reappears 
on  every  count,  it  begins  to  look  suspicious,  and  the  sus- 
picion falls  most  heavily  on  Meredith.  Others  may  come 
to  the  top  twice  or  even  thrice,  but  he  alone  is  never 
wholly  submerged,  and  is  nearly  always  dominant.  When 

1  The  relation  between  Kenelm  and  his  father  is  particularly  fine,  and  is  re- 
flected in  the  youth's  remark  to  a  comrade, — "  If  human  beings  despise  each 
other  for  being  young  and  foolish,  the  sooner  we  are  exterminated  by  that  su- 
perior race  which  is  to  succeed  us  on  earth,  the  better  it  will  be. " 


286       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Arnold  Bennett  declared  that  "Between  Fielding  and 
Meredith  no  entirely  honest  novel  was  written  by  anybody 
in  England,"  he  was  merely  following  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury fad  of  depreciating  the  nineteenth, — any  smart  miss 
of  sixteen  being  naturally  more  modern  and  sophisticated 
than  her  middle-aged  mother.  But  in  saying  that  "The 
death  of  George  Meredith  removes,  not  the  last  of  the  Vic- 
torian novelists,  but  the  first  of  the  modern  school,"  he 
mentions  an  obvious  fact,  not  really  discredited  by  the 
chronological  situation.  This  does  not  necessarily  argue, 
be  it  said,  that  Meredith  casts  the  forward  shadow  of  com- 
ing events.  His  strong  individuality  did  not  lend  itself  to 
imitation,  or  even  a  prompt  appreciation.  Moreover,  he 
had  in  him  no  germ  either  otfin  de  siecle  decadence  or  of 
its  flaunting  iconoclasm.  In  his  own  mountain  range  he 
is  simply  a  preeminent  peak,  as  in  theirs  were  Chaucer, 
Shakespeare,  Dryden,  Johnson. 

As  to  the  lower  plateaus  and  the  foothills,  the  only  thing 
of  interest  that  develops  through  examining  their  juxta- 
position, is  the  resultant  effect  on  Thackeray.  While  the 
others  stand  firmly  up  to  their  own  normal  height,  mak- 
ing no  attempt  to  add  a  cubit  to  their  stature,  he  seems  con- 
stantly to  be  taking  thought;  nor  is  it  thought  that  leads 
to  conclusions  of  much  moment.  "His  depth,"  like  Lyt- 
ton's,  "is  fathomable,"  but  his  air  is  of  the  most  pro- 
found and  meditative.  It  must  be  this,  together  with  his 
Snobs  and  Vanity  Fair  (to  both  of  which,  acknowledg- 
ments are  due)  that  has  bewitched  his  critics  and  per- 
suaded his  readers  into  ranking  him  as  the  foremost 
Victorian  satirist.  That  he  is  among  the  elect  is  unde- 
niable, even  to  being  "more  long-winded  than  Horace 
and  bitterer  than  Juvenal,"  1  but  to  place  him  above 

1  Cecil  Headlam,  in  his  Introduction  to  Selections  from  the  British  Satirists. 


RELATIONSHIPS  287 

them  in  any  absolute  way  is  to  ignore  the  greater 
range  of  Dickens,  the  keener  wit  of  Peacock  and  Butler, 
the  rarer  charm  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Trollope,  and  above 
all,  the  superior  penetration  and  insight  of  George  Eliot 
and  Meredith. 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  make  all  distinctions 
invidious  and  all  comparisons  odious.  Individually  and 
collectively  the  Victorian  satirists  are  to  be  accepted  with 
the  ungrudging  appreciation  they  deserve.  The  terribly 
exacting  author  of  'The  New  Macbiavelli  recognized 
in  their  endowment  to  us  nothing  but  "emasculated 
thought,"  "a  hasty  trial  experiment,  a  gigantic  experi- 
ment of  the  most  slovenly  and  wasteful  kind/'  "a  per- 
suasion that  whatever  is  inconvenient  or  disagreeable  to 
the  English  mind  could  be  annihilated  by  not  thinking 
about  it," — all  resulting  in  "the  clipped  and  limited  litera- 
ture that  satisfied  their  souls."  But  there  is  consolation  in 
the  counter-discovery  of  Professor  Sherman  (in  his  Modern 
Literature}  that  there  was  a  compensating  economy,  even 
in  their  failure:  "Dickens,  Kingsley,  Reade,  Mrs.  Stowe, 
and  the  rest,"  he  reminds  us,  "they  did  not  seek  to  make 
the  world  over,  but  only  to  accomplish  a  few,  simple  things 
like  abolishing  slavery,  sweat-shops,  Corn  Laws,  the 
schools  of  Squeers,  imprisonment  for  debt,  the  red  tape 
of  legal  procedure,  the  belief  in  pestilence  and  typhoid  as 
visitations  of  God — and  all  that  sort  of  piddling  amelio- 


ration." 


For  this  modest  ambition,  the  Victorians  found  satire 
an  effective  means,  and  they  proved  they  could  turn  it 
also  to  more  purely  artistic  uses.  Such  as  their  achieve- 
ment was,  they  are  doubtless  content  to  rest  in  peace  upon 
it,  granting  without  jealousy  to  their  illustrious  successors 
whatever  surpassing  results  they  may  be  able  to  accomplish. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   VICTORIAN    CONTRIBUTION 

By  the  nineteenth  century  the  general  inheritance  in 
ideas  and  methods  had  become  so  cumulatively  rich  and 
various  that  the  chances  for  novelty  might  seem  corre- 
spondingly meager.  But  there  is  always  something  new 
under  the  sun,  and  the  process  of  amalgamating  that  modi- 
cum of  newness  with  the  great  bulk  of  the  old  and  estab- 
lished goes  steadily  and  eternally  on — except  for  abnormal 
phases  of  retrogression,  or  revolution — forming  that  cease- 
less change  in  changelessness  we  call  history.  The  body 
of  satiric  tradition  bequeathed  to  the  Victorians  underwent, 
accordingly,  a  normal  amount  of  subtraction,  addition,  and 
modification,  before  being  passed  on  to  their  successors. 

The  endowment  itself  was  large  and  comprehensive, 
including  both  substance  and  modes,  as  well  as  a  supple- 
mentary current  of  criticism  and  interpretation.  In 
none  of  these  were  the  Victorians  responsible  for  a  trans- 
formation, yet  none  did  they  leave  in  statu  quo.  In  form, 
however,  a  great  change  had  recently  occurred,  operat- 
ing both  positively  and  negatively,  of  which  they  were 
just  in  time  to  take  advantage.  The  positive  side  of 
it  was  the  development  of  the  satiric  novel  in  the 
preceding  century,  whereby  the  channel  of  fiction  had 
already  been  accommodated  to  the  satiric  stream.  This 
tendency  was  reinforced  by  the  negative  side,  the  aban- 
donment of  English  satire's  one  conventional  outlet, 
the  heroic  couplet,  which  naturally  diverted  the  current 

288 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  289 

still  more.  The  chance  that  made  Byron  not  only  a  bril- 
liant climax  to  the  long  line  that  extended  back  to  Hall 
and  Lodge,  and  through  them  to  Juvenal  and  Horace, 
but  the  conclusion  as  well,  is  one  of  the  striking  situations 
in  the  history  of  literature.  This  transference  of  the  main 
bulk  of  satire  from  the  medium  of  poetry  to  that  of  prose 
would  probably  have  been  accomplished  in  any  case,  for 
since  the  Romantic  Triumph,  poetry  had  been  again  de-*' 
voted  to  its  true  mission  as  the  voice  of  imagination  and 
spiritual  vision,  while  at  the  same  time  the  novel  was  rind- 
ing a  congenial  sphere  of  action  as  a  public  forum  for  the 
discussion  of  all  things  from  current  events  to  a  philosophy 
of  life.  Satire,  being  presumably  a  utilitarian  product, 
would  naturally  be  more  suitably  allied  with  fiction,  a  * 
branch  of  Applied  Art,  than  with  the  Pure  Art  of  poetry. 
This  union  is  advantageous  for  another  reason, — the  im- 
provement as  to  proportion.  In  verse  satire  the  emphasis 
is  on  the  satire;  in  satiric  fiction,  the  former  noun  has  been 
relegated  to  the  qualifying  function  of  the  adjective. 
Since  one  of  the  perils  of  satire  is  over-emphasis,  and  since 
it  can  best  avoid  this  peril  by  combination,  the  gain  in  this 
arrangement  is  obvious.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  pure,  iso- 
lated satire  is  a  non-existent  abstraction,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  very  circumstance  of  the  origin  of  the  name.  The 
satura  lanx  was  a  dish  of  assorted  fruit,  and  the  primi- 
tive saturce  which  borrowed  its  name  were  the  impromptu^ 
miscellanies  in  speech  which  constituted  the  social  part| 
of  the  old  Roman  Harvest  Home.  Lucilius  and  later  Hor- 
ace, wanting  a  title  for  their  running  commentary  on  men 
and  manners,  found  this  conveniently  ready.  When  Juve- 
nal adopted  it,  he  had  no  notion  of  restricting  the  appli- 
cation: 1 

1  Satire  I,  85. 


290       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"Quicquid  agunt  homines,  votum,  timor,  ira,  voluptas, 
Gaudia,  discursus,  nostri  est  farrago  libelli." 

With  all  these  things  is  the  modern  novel  also  concerned, 
and  it  too  finds  some  of  them  amenable  to  humorous  treat- 
ment, and  some  only  to  serious.  But  so  far  as  change  is 
concerned,  it  occurs  during  this  period  more  in  substance 
than  in  form.  Vice  and  Folly  are  still  the  nominal  targets, 
whenever  these  traits  seem  to  be  a  cause  or  an  effect  of 
Deceit.1  But  they  are  somewhat  altered  in  shape,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  more  subtle  analysis  of  their  nature.  The 
great  discovery  was  made  about  the  deceiver  that  he  is 
quite  as  likely  as  not  to  be  deceiving  himself  as  well  as 
others, — more  than  others,  indeed,  inasmuch  as  his  very 
blindness  renders  him  the  more  transparent.  The  world, 
moreover,  growing  in  suspiciousness  and  incredulity,  is 
the  less  easily  deceived  and  the  more  able  to  detect  the 
fraud,  which  thus  reacts  like  a  boomerang  against  its  per- 
petrator. In  the  nineteenth  century  Pecksniff  really  was 
an  archaism;  and  since  Dickens  no  novelist  has  portrayed 
anything  so  bald  as  an  unadulterated  and  unexplained 
hypocrite.2  The  evolution  in  portrayal  from  the  hypo- 
crite to  the  sentimentalist  is  perfectly  illustrated  by  the 
difference  between  Pecksniff  and  Bulstrode.  For  the  lat- 
ter we  have  only  a  little  less  sympathy  than  for  Haw- 
thorne's Arthur  Dimmisdale,  in  spite  of  his  inferiority  in 
fineness  and  ultimate  courage.  For  we  are  shown  the 
"strange,  piteous  conflict  in  the  soul  of  this  unhappy 
man,  who  had  longed  for  years  to  be  better  than  he 

1  One  may  generalize  that  the  object  of  satire  is  deceit  as  one  may  call  the  sky 
blue.     It  does  not  always  appear  so.     Indeed,  it  shows  at  times  almost  every 
other  color. 

2  The  motto  of  Erewhon  Revisited  is  from  the  Iliad:  "Him  do  I  hate,  even  as  I 
hate  hell  fire,  who  says  one  thing,  and  hides  another  in  his  heart."     But  while 
Butler  is  vehement  enough,  he  is  less  fervent  than  this  would  indicate. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  29! 

was." 1  Even  his  prayer  after  becoming  virtually  a  mur- 
derer is  not  really  a  piece  of  hypocrisy.  "Does  anyone 
suppose,"  asks  Eliot,  "that  private  prayer  is  necessarily 
candid — necessarily  goes  to  the  roots  of  action?"  2 

George  Eliot  is,  however,  even  more  impressed  with  the 
auto-intoxication  of  optimism  as  it  manifests  itself  in 
what  might  be  called  group  psychology;  and  especially 
against  a  disregard  of  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  does  she 
turn  the  shafts  of  her  quiet  irony.  At  the  period  when  the 
Raveloe  tale  opens, —  3 

"It  was  still  that  glorious  war-time  which  was  felt  to  be  a 
peculiar  favor  of  Providence  toward  the  landed  interest,  and 
the  fall  of  prices  had  not  yet  come  to  carry  the  race  of  small 
squires  and  yeomen  down  that  road  to  ruin  for  which  extrav- 
agant habits  and  bad  husbandry  were  plentifully  anointing 
their  wheels." 

In  pursuance  of  this  comfortable  philosophy, — 

"*  *  *  the  rich  ate  and  drank  freely,  accepting  gout  and 
apoplexy  as  things  that  ran  mysteriously  in  respectable  families, 
and  the  poor  thought  that  the  rich  were  entirely  in  the  right 
of  it  to  lead  a  jolly  life." 

In  another  story  we  are  introduced  to  some  "  pious  Dis- 
senting women,  who  took  life  patiently,  and  thought  that 
salvation  depended  chiefly  on  predestination,  and  not  at 
all  on  cleanliness."  4  In  a  higher  social  class  this  inno- 

1  Middlemarch,  III,  264.. 
zlbid.,  271. 

3  Silas  Marner,  26-27.    In  the  same  narrative  the  author  uses  the  misfortunes 
of  Godfrey  to  illustrate  the  truth  that  "  Favorable  Chance  is  the  god  of  all  men 
who  follow  their  own  devices  instead  of  obeying  a  law  they  believe  in.     J 

The  evil  principle  deprecated  in  that  religion,  is  the  orderly  sequence  by  which 
the  seed  brings  forth  a  crop  after  its  kind."  91. 

4  Felix  Holt,  I,  6. 


2Q2       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

cence  of  the  connection  between  effort  and  achievement 
leads  to  the  fatuous  complacency  from  which  Gwendolen 
Harleth  was  aroused  by  the  cruel  shock  of  being  told  the 
truth  about  her  musical  abilities: 1 

"She  had  moved  in  a  society  where  everything,  from  low 
arithmetic  to  high  art,  is  of  the  amateur  kind  politely  supposed 
to  fall  short  of  perfection  only  because  gentlemen  and  ladies 
are  not  obliged  to  do  more  than  they  like — otherwise  they  would 
probably  give  forth  abler  writings  and  show  themselves  more 
commanding  artists  than  any  the  world  is  at  present  obliged  to 
put  up  with." 

Another  busy  circle  had  made  two  important  discov- 
eries: the  superiority  of  the  probable  over  the  actual;  and 
the  advantage  of  a  well-chosen  nomenclature,  whereby  a 
taste  for  cruelty  may  be  gratified  by  the  simple  device 
of  calling  it  kindness.  The  first  was  made  over  the  gossip 
about  Bulstrode: 2 

"Everbody  liked  better  to  conjecture  how  the  thing  was,  than 
simply  to  know  it;  for  conjecture  soon  became  more  confident 
than  knowledge,  and  had  a  more  liberal  allowance  for  the  incom- 
patible." 

The  second  developed  in  a  later  phase  of  the  same 
affair: 3 

"To  be  candid,  in  Middlemarch  phraseology,  meant,  to  use 
an  early  opportunity  of  letting  your  friends  know  that  you  did 
not  take  a  cheerful  view  of  their  capacity,  their  conduct,  or 
their  position;  and  a  robust  candour  never  waited  to  be  asked 
for  its  opinion." 

It  was  because  of  this  understanding  of  the  limitless 
possibilities  and  universal  prevalence  of  self-deception 

1  Daniel  Deronda,  I,  395.  2  Middlemarch,  III,  288.  3  Ibid.,  329. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  293 

that  Meredith  was  able  to  see  the  absurdity  in  egoism, 
which  is  the  form  of  the  malady  induced  by  vanity.  And 
this  perception,  as  a  modern  critic  observes,  is  the  source 
of  the  contrast  between  two  well-known  egoists, — Sir 
Charles  Grandison  and  Sir  Willoughby  Patterne: 1 

"Both,  superficially  viewed,  are  the  same  type:  a  male  para- 
gon before  whom  a  bevy  of  women  burn  incense.  But  O  the 
difference!  Grandison  is  serious  to  his  author,  while  Meredith, 
in  skinning  Willoughby  alive  like  another  Marsyas,  is  once  and 
for  all  making  the  worship  of  the  ego  hateful." 

If  one  should  ask,  remembering  the  necessity  for  self- 
assertion  in  the  exacting  requirements  of  our  human  des- 
tiny, why  so  indispensable  a  thing  as  egoism  should  be  ri- 
diculous, Meredith  has  his  answer  ready: 2 

"Nay,  to  be  an  exalted  variety  is  to  come  under  the  calm 
curious  eye  of  the  comic  spirit,  and  to  be  probed  for  what  you 


are." 


It  is  in  "imposing  figures"  that  the  malign  imps  "love 
to  uncover  ridiculousness."    Moreover, —  3 

"They  dare  not  be  chuckling  while  Egoism  is  valiant,  while 
sober,  while  socially  valuable,  nationally  serviceable.     They 


wait." 


This  turn  of  the  satiric  road  from  the  hypocritical  to  the 
sentimental  side  of  deceit  marked  a  passage  not  only 
through  traits  of  character,  as  already  noted,  but  through 
the  realm  of  institutions,  where  it  might  at  first  seem  to  be 
more  out  of  place.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  organiza- 
tions should  not  be  as  sentimental  as  the  individuals  of 

1  Burton,  Masters  of  the  English  Novel,  290. 
*  Essay  on  Comedy,  21. 
«  Prelude  to  The  Egoist. 


294       SATIRE     IN    THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

which  they  are  composed.  Indeed,  so  far  as  crowd  psy- 
chology is  in  operation,  they  would  be  strengthened  in 
self-deception  by  their  very  numbers.  Whether  this  is 
the  case  or  not,  it  is  true  that  the  tendency  increased  from 
Peacock  to  Butler  to  see  in  organized  groups  the  absurdity 
of  a  complacent  inefficiency.  Not  because  they  were  fail- 
ures did  English  institutions  come  under  the  rod,  but  be- 
cause they  flourished  under  a  mighty  delusion  of  success. 
Smug  incompetence,  self-satisfied  futility,  these  were  the 
gaping  incongruities  between  pretense  and  performance 
that  made  tempting  targets  out  of  Society,  Church,  School, 
and  State;  and  thitherward  were  trained  the  big  and  lit- 
tle guns  of  the  satirists. 

There  is,  of  course,  an  underlying  cause  of  this  trans- 
ference of  interest  from  the  more  simple  and  patent  hyp- 
ocrite to  the  more  subtle  and  baffling  sentimentalist, 
individual  and  collective,  and  that  is  found  in  the  spirit 
of  investigation,  analysis,  probing  beneath  surfaces, — not 
new,  to  be  sure,  but  newly  operative  on  a  large  scale, — 
known  as  Science.  Science  in  the  intellectual  world,  and 
democracy  in  the  political  are  the  two  forces  which  began 
in  the  nineteenth  century  the  Conquest  of  Canaan  that 
now  in  the  twentieth  they  are  gradually  completing. 

That  these  two  armies  are  allies  is  obvious.  The  end 
of  democracy  is  an  elevation  of  the  whole  plane  of  human 
life, — a  leveling  up  and  not  the  leveling  down  so  feared 
by  Carlyle  and  the  conservative  English  opinion  of  the 
time.  On  the  emotional  and  ethical  side  it  is  humanita- 
rian, but  in  itself  it  is  a  rational  utilitarian  principle.  For 
this  unquestionably  practical  end,  Pure  Science  furnishes 
the  justification,  indeed,  the  initial  premises,  by  showing 
the  biology  and  psychology  of  all  relationships,  the  re- 
spective effects  of  cooperation  and  antagonism  in  the  nat- 


THE   VICTORIAN    CONTRIBUTION  295 

ural  world,  and  kindred  factors;  while  Applied  Science 
supplies  the  means  to  that  end  by  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions bearing  on  the  amelioration  and  enhancement  of 
living  conditions. 

The  recognition  of  such  startling  innovations  would  be 
inevitably  slow,  and  their  adoption  still  slower.  But  it  is 
precisely  in  their  ultimately  successful  struggle  for  admis- 
sion into  the  life  and  thought  of  the  nineteenth  century 
that  we  trace  the  evolution  of  the  satire  of  the  period,  for 
the  satiric  reaction  is  merely  one  of  the  many  reflections 
of  that  struggle. 

A  humanitarian  democracy  has  turned  the  old  ex  ca- 
thedra criticism  into  the  forensic.  The  satirist  has  been 
obliged,  as  one  commentator  observes,  to  descend  from 
the  upper  window  whence  he  had  been  haranguing  the  mob 
below;  he  might  have  added,  much  of  the  mob  itself  has 
been  admitted  into  the  entrance  halls  at  least  of  the 
great  Administration  Building  of  modern  life.  But  mean- 
while the  scientific  method  has  added  reason  to  emotion, 
so  that  while  the  democratic  ideal  was  conceived  in  a 
rationalized  sympathy,  the  stress  has  slipped  more  and 
more  from  the  sympathetic  to  the  rational  element.  None 
of  the  Victorians  expressly  would  have  denied  the  Moral 
Obligation  to  be  Intelligent,  but  George  Eliot,  Meredith, 
and  Butler  were  the  first  to  make  a  real  point  of  it. 
For  by  the  latter  half  of  the  century  the  laboratory  had 
come  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  colleague,  if  not  the 
successor,  of  the  pulpit,  for  implicit  sermonizing  as  well 
as  explicit  instruction.  And  in  the  exercise  of  these  func- 
tions, while  the  pulpit  may  indulge  at  times  in  a  dec- 
orous ridicule,  it  is  the  laboratory  that  is  the  real,  spon- 
taneous, unconscious  satirist.  When  the  solemn  moral 
exhortation,  Ought,  was  supplanted  by  the  autocratic  sci- 


296       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

entific  command.  Must — if,  the  expression  changed  from 
earnest  pleading  to  detached  humor.  For  the  moralist 
takes  himself,  his  message,  and  his  hearers,  seriously,  but 
the  scientist  has  the  indifferent  attitude  that  if  you  refuse 
to  obey,  the  consequences,  serious  indeed  and  not  to  be 
averted  or  escaped,  will  come,  not  in  the  guise  of  punish- 
ment or  retribution,  but  through  the  inexorable  operation 
of  law.  Accordingly,  if  you  try  to  delude  yourself  into  the 
supposition  that  you  can  evade  the  orders  of  nature,  the 
joke  is  on  you. 

While,  therefore,  in  Victorian  satire  the  old  familiar 
faces  of  Society,  State,  and  Church  reappear,  they  are 
subjected  to  a  new  treatment,  as  the  result  of  a  new 
diagnosis. 

The  School  and  the  Press  are  the  only  additions  to  the 
time-honored  objects,  because  of  their  more  recent  emer- 
gence into  the  light.  The  erection  of  the  School  into  a  pub- 
lic institution,  together  with  the  subsidence  of  the  Church 
into  the  sphere  of  private  life,  marks  indeed  a  radical 
change  in  viewpoint, — advancing  from  the  assumption 
that  the  State  must  insure  the  religion  of  its  citizens,  let 
them  be  educated  how  they  might  (except  that  for  a  long 
time  they  had  no  choice  but  to  take  their  secular  learn- 
ing from  the  hands  of  the  clergy)  to  the  realization  that 
if  those  responsible  for  the  general  welfare  would  provide 
for  a  general  diffusion  of  enlightenment,  the  religious 
sentiment  might  safely  be  trusted  to  those  whom  it 
concerned,  namely,  the  individuals  themselves.  In  re- 
gard to  all  these  institutions  the  old,  sharply  defined  con- 
trast between  guilty,  satirized  protagonist  and  indicting, 
satirical  antagonist  has  disappeared.  In  its  place  is  a  de- 
cided tendency  toward  the  fellow-member,  fellow-citizen, 
fellow-sinner  attitude,  which  at  least  has  the  advantage 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  297 

always  held  by  the  empiric  knowledge  of  the  insider  over 
the  deductive  inference  of  the  outsider. 

In  the  social  field  the  most  notable  alteration  is  in  the 
satire  of  woman.  From  the  time  of  the  Greek  Simonides 
and  the  Hebrew  epigrammatists,  feminine  foibles  have 
been  alluring  game  for  masculine-made  arrows.  The 
shrew,  the  gossip,  the  blue-stocking,  the  interfering  step- 
mother, the  intriguing  wife,  the  extravagant  daughter,  the 
lady  of  fashion,  have  been  detected  with  unerring  clarity 
of  vision  and  pursued  with  accomplished  skill.  They  have 
also  been  taken  for  granted.  It  was  not  until  the  modern 
inquiry  into  cause  and  effect  was  instituted  that  the  fem- 
inine failure  was  viewed  as  an  effect  of  which  society  was 
largely  the  cause,  by  withholding  opportunity  on  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  encouraging  the  very  ignorance  and  in- 
anity it  affected  to  despise.  This  discovery  led  logically 
to  the  shifting  of  the  satire  from  effect  back  to  cause,  and 
the  addition  of  another  item  to  the  list  wherein  the  con- 
certed action  of  the  social  group  is  held  accountable  for 
any  malign  influence  on  its  members. 

This  probing  into  causes  is  even  more  sweepingly  oper- 
ative in  the  larger  society  of  mankind  and  the  body  poli- 
tic. The  study  of  economics  and  sociology  inevitably  has 
switched  the  old  partisan  antagonism  into  a  new  opposi- 
tion based  more  consciously  on  theories  of  government, — 
still  partisan,  to  be  sure,  but  less  on  personal  and  more  on 
philosophical  grounds.  The  new  element  this  brings  into 
political  satire  is  the  effort  to  create  a  public  sense  of  shame 
for.  official  incompetence,  since  in  a  democracy  (and  such, 
in  some  form  or  other,  is  almost  every  modern  State)  the 
blame  for  this  incompetence  rests  ultimately  on  the  pub- 
lic. Modern  critics  may  echo  Isaiah's  scornful  com- 
plaint of  state  officialdom, —  "The  ancient  and  the  honor- 


298       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

able  man,  he  is  the  head;  and  the  prophet  that  teacheth 
lies,  he  is  the  tail/' — but  their  remedy  would  lie  not  in  in- 
creased reliance  on  a  theocracy  but  in  a  more  adequate 
popular  referendum.  John  Barton  concludes  his  impas- 
sioned tirade  against  mill-owners  and  capitalists  with  the 
argument, —  1 

"Don't  think  to  come  over  me  with  th'  old  tale,  that  the 
rich  know  nothing  of  the  trials  of  the  poor;  I  say,  if  they  don't 
know,  they  ought  to  know.  We're  their  slaves  as  long  as  we  can 
work;  we  pile  up  their  fortunes  with  the  sweat  of  our  brows,  and 
yet  we  are  to  live  as  separate  as  Dives  and  Lazarus,  with  a 
great  gulf  betwixt  us:  but  I  know  who  was  best  off  then." 

On  another  occasion  he  adds  this  explanation, — 2 

"What  we  all  feel  sharpest  is  the  want  of  inclination  to  try 
and  help  the  evils  which  come  like  blights  at  times  over  the  man- 
ufacturing places,  while  we  see  the  masters  can  stop  work  and 
not  suffer." 

To  this  serious  and  personal  grief  Meredith  responds, 
as  it  were,  in  his  more  impersonal  and  ironic  manner.  Di- 
ana represents  the  view  from  a  position  of  equality,  and 
the  satire  of  one's  own  class: 3 

"And  charity  is  haunted,  like  everything  we  do.  Only  I  say 
with  my  whole  strength — yes,  I  am  sure,  in  spite  of  the  men  pro- 
fessing that  they  are  practical,  the  rich  will  not  move  without 
a  goad.  I  have  and  hold — you  shall  hunger  and  covet,  until 
you  are  strong  enough  to  force  my  hand; — that's  the  speech  of 
the  wealthy.  And  they  are  Christians.  In  name.  Well,  I  thank 
heaven  I'm  at  war  with  myself.' " 

Kingsley  is  spurred  by  the  subject  to  a  bitter  sar- 
casm: 4 

1  Mary  Barton,  6.  *  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  48. 

2  Ibid.,  3 17.  *  Yeasty  34. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION 

"The  finest  of  us  are  animals,  after  all,  and  live  by  eating  and 
sleeping,  and,  taken  as  animals,  not  so  badly  off,  either — unless 
we  happen  to  be  Dorsetshire  laborers — or  Spitalfield  weavers — 
or  colliery  children — or  marching  soldiers — or,  I  am  afraid,  one 
half  of  English  souls  this  day." 

Nor  is  he  lacking  in  a  constructive  outlook.  In  con- 
nection with  a  fling  at  the  "amusingly  inconsistent,  how- 
ever well-meant  scene  in  Coningsby^  in  which  Disraeli 
illustrates  his  idea  of  a  beneficent  aristocracy,  he  has  one 
of  his  characters  meditate  that —  l 

"It  may  suit  the  Mr.  Lyles  of  this  age  *  *  *  to  make  the 
people  constantly  and  visibly  comprehend  that  property  is  their 
protector  and  their  friend,  but  I  question  whether  it  will  suit  the 
people  themselves,  unless  they  can  make  property  understand 
that  it  owes  them  something  more  definite  than  protection." 

At  that  time  there  was  not  much  disposition  to  believe 
these  ills  could  be  cured  by  legislation.  On  the  contrary, 
the  numerous  satiric  hits  at  various  governmental  depart- 
ments were  aimed  not  at  the  general  laissezfaire  policy 
of  the  State,  but  at  its  indifferent  success  in  the  matters 
over  which  it  had  already  assumed  jurisdiction,  and  its 
unwarranted  encroachment  into  others.  The  reasoning 
seemed  to  be  that  an  institution  which  had  been  unfaith- 
ful and  convicted  of  inertness,  graft,  and  stupidity  in  its 
limited  operations  would  be  unlikely  to  be  more  alert, 
honest,  and  intelligent  if  its  burdens  were  increased.  Da- 
vid Copperfield  is  shocked  to  learn  from  Mr.  Spenlow  the 
ways  of  the  law,  and  still  more  so  at  Mr.  Spenlow's  cold- 

1  Yeasty  236.  He  also  has  a  sneer  for  the  patronizing  scheme  of  Vieuxbois,  in 
which  "of  course  the  clergy  and  the  gentry  were  to  educate  the  poor,  who  were 
to  take  down  thankfully  as  much  as  it  was  thought  proper  to  give  them:  and 
all  beyond  was  *  self-will '  and  'private  judgment,'  the  fathers  of  Dissent  and 
Chartism,  Trades-union  strikes,  and  French  Revolutions."  117. 


300       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

ness  toward  the  idea  of  reform.1  Henry  Little  wades 
through  and  climbs  over  all  sorts  of  official  obstacles  until 
"he  had  done,  in  sixty  days,  what  a  true  inventor  will  do 
in  twenty-four  hours,  whenever  the  various  metallic  ages 
shall  be  succeeded  by  the  age  of  reason."  2  A  prison  in- 
spector is  finally  confronted  with  actual  facts  of  a  horrify- 
ing nature: 3 

"How  unreal  and  idle  appeared  now  the  twenty  years  gone 
in  tape  and  circumlocution!  Away  went  his  life  of  shadows — 
his  career  of  watery  polysyllables  meandering  through  the 
great  desert  into  the  Dead  Sea." 

But  more  subtle  and  vital  than  all  these  errors, — the 
error  indeed  at  the  root  of  them  all, — is  the  failure  of  the 
State  to  utilize  the  fine  material  placed  at  its  disposal, 
potentially  if  not  actually,  in  the  lives  of  noble  and  capa- 
ble youth.  No  one  before  Lytton  could  have  laid  at  the 

1  He  reflects,  "I  had  not  the  hardihood  to  suggest  to  Dora's  father  that  pos- 
sibly we  might  even  improve  the  world  a  little,  if  we  got  up  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  took  off  our  coats  to  the  work;  but  I  confessed  that  I  thought  we  might 
improve  the  Commons."      David  Copperfield,  II,  44.    The  counter  argument 
brought  forward  to  dampen  his  enthusiasm  was  that  more  good  was  done  to  the 
sinecurists  than  harm  to  the  public, — whose  ignorance  was  its  bliss.     "Under 
the  Prerogative  Office,  the  country  had  been  glorious.    Insert  the  wedge  into 
the  Prerogative  Office,  and  the  country  would  cease  to  be  glorious,    He  con- 
sidered it  the  principle  of  a  gentleman  to  take  things  as  he  found  them." 

2  Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  401. 

3  Never  too  Late  to  Mendy  411.    In  the  same  story  Reade  lays  great  stress  on 
the  importance  of  the  inspector's  duty:  "Only  for  this  task  is  required,  not  the 
gullibility  that  characterizes  the  many,  but  the  sagacity  that  distinguishes  the 
few."  360. 

It  was  this  sagacity,  combined  with  keen  imagination,  quick  sympathy,  and 
prompt  and  efficient  action,  that  rendered  the  chaplain  Eden  a  success  under 
discouraging  difficulties.  The  very  foundation  of  his  success  was  laid  when  he 
insisted  on  experiencing  for  himself  the  straight  jacket  and  the  solitary  con- 
finement, to  the  unbounded  but  amused  mystification  of  the  jail  officials.  And 
the  shrewd  coup  d'ttat  by  which  he  converted  one  of  them  revealed  the  profound 
truth  that  "ignorance  is  the  mother  of  cruelty." 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  3OI 

door  of  society  the  wasted  possibilities  of  a  Godolphin.  No 
one  before  Meredith  could  have  made  the  thwarted  career 
of  a  Beauchamp  a  pitiful  satire  on  "his  indifferent  Eng- 
land," who  appeared,  "with  a  quiet  derision  that  does 
not  belie  her  amiable  passivity,  to  have  reduced  in  Beau- 
champ's  career  the  boldest  readiness  for  public  action,  and 
some  good  stout  efforts  besides,  to  the  flat  result  of  an 
optically  discernible  influence  of  our  hero's  character  in 
the  domestic  circle:  perhaps  a  faintly  outlined  circle  or  two 
beyond  it."  1 

In  Society  and  the  State  all  opposition  is  necessarily 
factional,  for  none  can  stand  entirely  outside.  This  was 
true  of  the  Church  also,  during  its  undisputed  supremacy, 
when  to  be  excommunicated  was  equivalent  to  being  im- 
prisoned or  otherwise  put  outside  the  pale.  But  by  the 
sixteenth. century  Skelton  could  say  in  Colyn  Clout, 

"For,  as  farre  as  I  can  se, 
It  is  wrong  with  eche  degre; 
For  the  temporalte 
Accuseth  the  spiritualte; 
The  spirituall  agayne 
Dothe  grudge  and  complayne 
Upon  the  temporall  men:" 

By  the  eighteenth,  Voltaire  could  get  a  hearing,  albeit 
a  hostile  and  scandalized  one.  And  by  the  nineteenth,  we 
have  not  only  Bronte  and  Kingsley  censuring  from  within, 
but  Meredith  and  Butler  from  without.  So  far  as  there 
is  a  new  note  in  the  censure,  it  is  in  harmony  with  the 
whole  strain  of  the  time.  For  the  old  crude  gibes  against 
the  old  crude  faults  of  hypocrisy,  sensuality,  and  greed, 
is  substituted  the  criticism  that  a  huge  organization  fails 

1  Beauchamp's  Career,  40. 


3O2       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

to  utilize  the  tremendous  power  of  its  equipment,  pres- 
tige, and  authority,  in  the  furtherance  of  general  progress 
and  the  establishment  of  a  genuine  kingdom  of  God  here 
upon  earth.  For  from  the  spiritualte  as  well  as  the  tem- 
poralte  the  new  humanitarian  spirit  demands  recogni- 
tion and  service. 

These  modifications  in  form  and  substance  were  in- 
duced by  a  modification,  probably  unconscious,  of  the  idea 
of  satire  itself,  and  they  in  turn  reacted  on  it  to  strengthen 
the  changing  conception.  The  two  main  elements, — a 
wider  socialization  in  the  point  of  view,  and  a  firmer  in- 
sistence on  an  understanding  of  conditions  such  as  could 
not  be  secured  under  the  old  artless  habit  of  accepting  the 
premises, — stand  for  that  union  of  feeling  and  intelligence 
which  was  the  ideal  of  the  nineteenth  century.  "Men," 
says  Meredith,  "  and  the  ideas  of  men,  which  are  *  *  * 
actually  the  motives  of  men  in  a  greater  degree  than  their 
appetites;  these  are  my  theme;"  1  and  again,  "The  Gods 
of  this  world's  contests  demand  it  of  us,  in  relation  to  them, 
that  the  mind,  and  not  the  instincts,  shall  be  at  work."  2 
The  corollary  of  this  is  that  though  satire  may  be  "  a  pas- 
sion to  sting  and  tear,"  it  must  do  so  "on  rational 
grounds."  3  "Satire,"  says  Trollope,  "though  it  may  ex- 
aggerate the  vice  it  lashes,  is  not  justified  in  creating  it  in 
order  that  it  may  be  lashed.  Caricature  may  too  easily 
become  a  slander,  and  satire  a  libel."  4  Sympathy  and  in- 

1  Beauchamp's  Career,  7. 

2  Diana  of  the  Cros sways,  153. 

3  One  of  Our  Conquerors,  70.    Etymologically,  it  is  only  the  sarcastic  variety 
which  pushes  the  attack  so  far. 

4  Autobiography,  86.     Even  the  ingenuous  Mr,  Brooke  of  Middlemarch  had 
made  the  subtle  discovery  that  "  Satire,  you  know,  should  be  true  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point."    And  a  century  before,  satire's  warmest  defender,  John  Brown, 
had  cautioned  the  wits  against  degrading  her  "to  a  scold." 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  303 

telligence  have  no  objection  to  pungency  and  force- 
fulness,  but  they  have  no  real  need  for  truculence  or  un- 
fairness. It  is,  as  Garnett  suggests,  the  unsophisticated 
man  who  regards  satire  as  the  offspring  of  ill-nature.  Such 
was  the  intellectual  status  of  Lady  Middleton,  who  could 
not  feel  an  affinity  for  Elinor  and  Marianne  Dashwood:  1 

"Because  they  neither  flattered  herself  nor  her  children,  she 
could  not  believe  them  good-natured;  and  because  they  were 
fond  of  reading,  she  fancied  them  satirical:  perhaps  without  ex- 
actly knowing  what  it  was  to  be  satirical;  but  that  did  not  sig- 
nify. It  was  censure  in  common  use,  and  easily  given." 

The  vague  notion  that  a  satirist  is  something  disagree- 
able will  of  course  never  quite  be  eradicated,  at  least  not 
until  people  learn  to  like  being  ridiculed  and  criticised. 
But  in  manner  he  is  undeniably  growing  less  disagreeable 
than  has  been  his  wont.  Another  reason  for  this,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  changes  already  noted,  is  the  increased  activity 
of  that  reflexive  sense  of  humor  which  operates  as  an  anti- 
toxin to  the  vanity  inherent  in  all  critics.  A  wholesome 
fear  of  being  absurd  serves  to  reduce  one's  chances  of  be- 
ing that  rich  anomaly,  a  ridiculous  satirist.  The  modern 
satirist  may  possess  a  mind  conscious  to  itself  of  right  and 
a  conviction  that  he  has  a  mission  to  perform.  But  he  is 
more  prone  to  conceal  or  even  disclaim  these  things  than 
to  advertise  them.  Even  Fielding  did  not  proclaim,  as  he 
might  have  done,  that  he  first  adventured.  Peacock  trusted 
to  his  readers  to  discover  that  fools  being  his  theme, 
satire  must  be  his  song.  Since  his  time,  satire,  while  ques- 
tioning all  things  with  a  new  penetration,  has  succeeded 
in  taking  on  an  air  of  unconcern  and  in  realizing  that  nei- 
ther promises  nor  apologies  are  necessary.  Post-Byronic 

1  Sense  and  Sensibility,  244. 


304       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

satire  seldom  vaunts  itself,  and,  however  superior  it  may 
feel,  it  pretends  that  it  is  not  puffed  up.  A  historian  de- 
scribes the  change  that  takes  place  between  the  Age  of 
Elizabeth,  when  satire  "was  the  pastime  of  very  young 
men,  who  *  railed  on  Lady  Fortune  in  good  set  terms," 
and  the  Commonwealth,  when  the  combatants  "left  Na- 
ture and  Fortune  with  their  withers  un wrung,  and  aimed 
at  the  joints  in  the  harness  of  their  enemies."  l  To  the 
Victorians,  satire  was  neither  a  pastime  nor  a  matter  for 
deadly  earnestness.  Armored  antagonists  had  gone  out 
of  fashion;  and  Lady  Fortune  was  left  to  the  metaphy- 
sicians. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  matter  of  curious  interest  that  one  object 
of  satire,  life  itself,  which  had  drawn  fire  occasionally  all 
the  way  from  Aristophanes  to  Bryon,  should  have  been 
neglected  by  the  Victorians, — though  the  neglect  may  be 
accounted  for  by  their  interest  in  the  concrete  and  their 
generally  optimistic  outlook.  On  the  other  hand,  one  of 
the  most  philosophic  and  least  optimistic  of  them  devotes 
several  bow-shots  to  a  sort  of  counter  attack,  against  those 
who  consider  the  universe  a  fit  subject  for  satire.  The 
Prelude  to  Middlemarch  identifies  the  heroine  as  one  of 
those  unfortunate  women  of  deep  souls  and  shallow  cir- 
cumstances, "who  found  for  themselves  no  epic  life 
wherein  there  was  a  constant  unfolding  of  far-resonant 
action."  To  this  the  comment  is  added: 2 

"Some  have  felt  that  these  blundering  lives  are  due  to  the  in- 
convenient indefiniteness  with  which  the  Supreme  Power  has 

1  Raleigh:  The  English  Novel,  112. 

2  Middlemarch,  I,  174.    Cf.  the  taunt  of  the  practical  young  Radical  to  Esther 
Lyon,  on  her  choice  of  literature:  "     *          *     gentlemen  like  your  Renes,  who 
have  no  particular  talent  for  the  finite,  but  a  general  sense  that  the  infinite  is 
the  right  thing  for  them."    Felix  Holt,  II,  34. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  305 

fashioned  the  natures  of  women :  if  there  were  one  level  of  fem- 
inine incompetence  as  strict  as  the  ability  to  count  three  and 
no  more,  the  social  lot  of  women  might  be  treated  with  scien- 
tific certitude." 

The  fact,  however,  that  "Here  and  there  is  born  a  Saint 
Theresa,  foundress  of  nothing,"  is  not  an  irony  of  fate  so 
much  as  a  folly  of  society.  Later  in  the  story  the  phil- 
osophizing of  one  of  the  characters  leads  the  author  to  the 
reflection: 

"Some  gentlemen  have  made  an  amazing  figure  in  literature 
by  general  discontent  with  the  universe  as  a  trap  of  dulness  into 
which  their  great  souls  have  fallen  by  mistake;  but  the  sense 
of  a  stupendous  self  and  an  insignificant  world  may  have  its 
consolations." 

Nay,  the  metaphysician  himself  does  not  altogether  es- 
cape. Piero  de  Cosimo  is  accused  of  being  one  and  repu- 
diates the  idea: 1 

"Not  I,  Messer  Greco;  a  philosopher  is  the  last  sort  of  ani- 
mal I  should  choose  to  resemble.  I  find  it  enough  to  live,  with- 
out spinning  lies  to  account  for  life.  Fowls  cackle,  asses  bray, 
women  chatter,  and  philosophers  spin  false  reasons — that's  the 
effect  the  sight  of  the  world  brings  out  of  them." 

This  perception  of  the  Idol  of  the  Cave,  and  the  whole 
trend  of  Eliot's  argument  is  evidence  that  the  pragmatic 
attitude  existed  some  time  before  it  was  so  vividly  and 
enduringly  defined  by  Professor  James. 

Since  these  various  changes  bring  about  no  complete 
break  with  the  satiric  tradition,  we  may  expect  to  find 
the  connecting  links  with  both  the  remote  and  the  imme- 
diate past  as  much  in  evidence  as  are  the  features  of  nov- 
elty. Peacock's  indebtedness  was  to  the  Athenian  com- 

1  Romola,  I,  287. 


306       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

edy,  and  Lytton's  to  the  near-contemporary  Byron.  Mrs. 
Gaskell  had  Jane  Austen  and  Crabbe  and  the  whole  gal- 
lery of  eighteenth-century  village  vignettes  for  her  humors 
of  rural  life;  while  her  Mary  Barton  probably  reached  back 
to  Sybil,  as  it  did  forward  to  the  line  of  economic  novels. 
Thackeray  had  a  large  store  to  draw  on  for  his  burlesques, 
as  did  Lytton  and  Butler  for  their  pseudo-Utopias. 
.  Nor  is  there  any  abrupt  termination  to  satiric  affairs  as 
the  Victorians  left  them  at  the  end  of  the  century.  The 
years  stand  as  sign  posts  along  the  way,  and  not  as  bar- 
riers across  it.  The  changes  they  call  our  attention  to 
were  less  patent  to  those  in  and  by  whom  they  were  work- 
ing than  to  us  with  our  perspective.  From  our  moderate 
distance  we  are  able  to  discern  not  only  the  evolutionary 
process  but  some  of  its  results. 

In  a  national  award  the  satiric  prize  would  undoubt- 
edly go  to  the  French,  whose  genius  for  satire  not  only 
gave  them  preeminence  among  the  peoples  in  that  line, 
but  gave  their  satire  precedence  over  their  other  litera- 
ture. But  with  this  exception,  the  total  effect  of  satire 
in  the  Victorian  novel  ranks  artistically  with  the  highest  at 
large,  and  surpasses  some  other  elements  of  the  fiction  it- 
self. For  the  nineteenth-century  novel  is  undeniably  di- 
dactic, and  therefore,  while  it  gains  in  point,  significance, 
and  intellectual  interest,  it  loses  in  romantic  interest  and 
esthetic  purity.  It  is  here  that  satire  becomes  its  salva- 
tion, for  by  giving  much  of  the  criticism  a  humorous  turn 
it  counteracts  the  didactic  effect,  enhances  delight,  and, 
to  readers  of  a  sensitive  response,  makes  a  point  that 
would  not  be  sharpened  by  increased  vehemence.  No 
invective  against  the  Countess  de  Saldar  could  be  so  il- 
luminating as  Lady  Jocelyn's  thorough  relish  of  her  as  a 
specimen.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  Mr.  Bennet's  enjoyment 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  307 

of  Collins  and  Wickham; l  with  Lamb's  avowal  that  he 
would  rather  lose  the  legacy  Dorrell  cheated  him  out  of 
than  "be  without  the  idea  of  that  specious  old  rogue ;" 
and  with  the  dismay  of  Don  Antonio  over  the  restored 
sanity  of  Don  Quixote.2  It  is  the  secret  of  Trollope's 
charm,  as  Hawthorne  indicated  when  he  described  the  im- 
pression of  those  "beef  and  ale"  novels, — 

"*  *  *  as  if  some  giant  had  hewn  a  great  lump  out 
of  the  earth  and  put  it  under  a  glass  case,  with  all  its  inhabit- 
ants going  about  their  daily  business,  and  not  suspecting  that 
they  were  being  made  a  show  of." 

It  would  have  been  a  saving  grace  to  many  of  the  dra- 
matis persona  if  they  could  have  shared  the  experience  of 
a  romantically  inclined  youth  who,  after  building  an  air 
castle  in  which  he  figured  first  as  a  conquering  hero  and 
then  as  a  magnanimous  patron,  suddenly  "came  to:"  3 

"And  then  he  turned  upon  himself  with  laughter,  discovering 
a  most  wholesome  power,  barely  to  be  suspected  in  him  yet. " 

"What  a  pity  it  is,"  exclaimed  Butler,4  "that  Chris- 
tian never  met  Mr.  Common-Sense  with  his  daughter, 

1  In  his  initial  pleasure  over  Wickham,  he  defies  "  even  Sir  William  Lucas  him- 
self to  produce  a  more  valuable  son-in-law,"  but  later,  after  reading  a  letter 
from  Collins,  he  concludes, — "I  cannot  help  giving  him  the  preference  even, 
over  Wickham,  much  as  I  value  the  impudence  and  hypocrisy  of  my  son-in-law.'* 

2  "God  forgive  you,"  he  exclaims  to  Carrasco,  "the  injury  you  have  done  the 
whole  world,  in  endeavouring  to  restore  to  his  senses  the  most  diverting  mad- 
man in  it.     Do  you  not  see,  sir,  that  the  benefit  of  his  recovery  will  not  counter- 
balance the  pleasure  his  extravagancies  afford?"    Ill,  449. 

3  Evan  Harrington,  457.    Cf.  a  similar  idea  in  The  Shaving  of  Shagpat.    The 
narrator  of  The  Newcomes  speaks  in  the  Preface  of  the  "pert  little  satirical  mon- 
itor" which  sprang  up  inwardly  and  upset  the  fond  humbug  he  was  cherishing. 
It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  neither  Dickens  nor  Thackeray,  with  all  their 
humor,  could  create  characters  with  that  quality.    Even  of  Becky  it  might  be 
said  that  she  never  did  a  foolish  thing,  nor  ever  said  a  wise  one< 

*Note  Books,  189. 


308       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

Good-Humour,  and  her  affianced  husband,  Mr.  Hate- 
Cant."  Bunyan  doubtless  would  have  replied  that  he  also 
approved  of  these  somewhat  worldly  characters,  but  that 
they  were  people  of  less  importance  in  their  day  than  they 
became  thereafter.  The  progress  of  the  modern  pilgrim 
is  toward  a  City  of  Sanitation  rather  than  Holiness,  but 
sanitation  is  interpreted  so  widely  as  to  include  the  soul 
also  in  the  cleansing  process.  For  this  work  Common- 
Sense  and  Hate-Cant  are  our  efficiency  experts;  and  that 
Good-Humour  should  be  a  member  of  their  household  is 
inevitable  at  a  time  when  graciousness  is  accounted  not  a 
negligible  adornment  but  a  fundamental  virtue. 

To  the  poise  and  proportion  contributed  to  satire  by  the 
emphasis  on  the  quality  of  humor,  must  be  added  the  jus- 
tice that  comes  from  a  rationalized  sympathy,  and  from 
the  counter,  positive  element  which  restores  the  balance 
pulled  down  by  destructive  criticism.  A  striking  ex- 
ample of  both  is  furnished  by  Meredith  in  his  explanation 
of  one  of  his  characters.  No  pretender  has  ever  been 
more  skillfully  pursued  or  more  thoroughly  unmasked 
than  the  ambitious  daughter  of  the  great  Mel.  After 
such  treatment  no  one  before  this  time  could  have  pre- 
sented so  fairly  the  case  for  the  defendant: l 

"Now  the  two  Generals — Rose  Jocelyn  and  the  Countess 
de  Saldar — had  brought  matters  to  this  pass;  and  from  the 
two  tactical  extremes:  the  former  by  openness  and  dash;  the 
latter  by  subtlety  and  her  own  interpretations  of  the  means 
extended  to  her  by  Providence.  I  will  not  be  so  bold  as  to 
state  which  of  the  two  I  think  right.  Good  and  evil  work  to- 
gether in  this  world.  If  the  Countess  had  not  woven  the  tangle, 
and  gained  Evan  time,  Rose  would  never  have  seen  his  blood, — 
never  have  had  her  spirit  hurried  out  of  all  shows  and  forms 

1  Evan  Harrington,  368. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  309 

and  habits  of  thought,  up  to  the  gates  of  existence,  as  it  were, 
where  she  took  him  simply  as  God  created  him,  and  clave  to  him." 

Thackeray  and  Trollope  also  apologize  for  some  of  the 
people  they  ridicule,  but  with  this  characteristic  difference, 
that  Thackeray  bespeaks  your  indulgence  for  a  Pendennis 
or  a  Philip  on  the  Horatian  ground, 

"Nam  vitiis  nemo  sine  nascitur;  optimus  ille  est 
Qui  minimis  urgetur" 

But  Trollope  conscientiously  reminds  the  reader  that 
his  picture  of  an  Archdeacon  Grantly,  a  George  Bertram, 
even  a  Mrs.  Proudie,  is  one-sided;  that  their  dramatic 
and  amusing  faults  have  been  allowed  to  overshadow 
their  less  entertaining  but  existent  virtues;  and  that  to 
know  all  would  be,  not  to  forgive  all,  but  to  forgive  ju- 
diciously. His  story  of  the  childish  lapse  and  manly 
recovery  of  the  vicar  Robarts  concludes  with  the  re- 
flection, "A  man  may  be  very  imperfect  and  yet  worth 
a  great  deal.*' 1  This  is  a  clear,  cool  discrimination  far 
more  difficult  to  attain  than  Thackeray's  nebulous  impli- 
cation that  though  this  man  is  certainly  very  imperfect 
and  not  worth  a  great  deal  yet  his  dear  womenkind 
excuse  him  and  we  adore  them  for  it. 

George  Eliot  is  too  stern  to  do  much  excusing,  but  she 
always  gives  due  weight  to  "the  terrible  coercion  of  our 
deeds."  If  she  insists  on  the  baleful  effect  of  yielding 
to  temptation,  she  insists  also  on  an  appreciation  of  the 
tempting  force.  She  analyzes  the  culprit: 2 

1  Framley  Parsonage,  306. 

2  Adam  Bede,  II,  37.    Cf.  Lord  Fleetwood's  complaint  to  Carinthia  that  she 
has  hit  him  hard  and  justly,  followed  by  his  acknowledgment, — "Not  you. 
Our  deeds  are  the  hard  hitters.    We  learn  when  they  begin  to  flagellate,  stroke 
upon  stroke!    Suppose  we  hold  a  costly  thing  in  the  hand  and  dash  it  to  the 
ground — no  recovery  of  it,  none!"    An  Amazing  Marriage,  439. 


JIO       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

"The  action  which  before  commission  has  been  seen  with 
that  blended  common-sense  and  fresh  untarnished  feeling  which, 
is  the  healthy  eye  of  the  soul,  is  looked  at  afterwards  with  the 
lens  of  apologetic  ingenuity,  through  which  all  things  that  men 
call  beautiful  and  ugly  are  seen  to  be  made  up  of  textures  very 
much  alike." 

But  at  the  same  time  she  warns  his  judges: 

"Our  deeds  determine  us  as  much  as  we  determine  our  deeds; 
and  until  we  know  what  has  been  or  will  be  the  peculiar  com- 
bination of  outward  with  inward  facts,  which  constitutes  a 
man's  critical  actions,  it  will  be  better  not  to  think  ourselves 
wise  about  his  character." 

Elsewhere,  on  the  same  theme,  she  indicates  her  general 
impression  of  the  relative  amounts  of  human  wisdom  and 
folly:  1 

"And  to  judge  wisely  I  suppose  we.  must  know  how  things 
appear  to  the  unwise;  that  kind  of  appearance  making  the 
larger  part  of  the  world's  history. " 

This  is  in  agreement  with  the  point  of  the  lines  written 
on  -the  portrait  of  Beau  Nash  at  Bath,  placed  between 
the  busts  of  Newton  and  Pope: 

"This  picture  placed  these  busts  between, 
Gives  satire  all  its  strength: 
Wisdom  and  Wit  are  little  seen, 
But  Folly  at  full  length." 

But  this  Victorian  painter  of  Folly,  and  at  least  some 
of  her  contemporaries,  endeavored  to  make  satire  realis- 
tic by  drawing  Wit  and  Wisdom  on  a  proportionate  scale. 
It  was  in  recognition  of  this  that  Stevenson  said, 

1  Daniel  Deronda,  II,  86. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION 

"My  compliments  to  George  Eliot  for  her  Rosamund  Vincy; 
the  ugly  work  of  satire  she  has  transmuted  to  the  ends  of  art 
by  the  companion  figure  of  Lydgate;  and  the  satire  was  much 
wanted  for  the  education  of  young  men. " 

Victorian  literature  would  not  have  cared  to  produce  a 
Sbip  of  Fools, — though  a  passenger  list  might  easily  be 
culled  out  from  its  fiction, — nor  a  Hudibras,  nor  a  Dunciad, 
nor  even  a  Tartujfe,  for  George  Warrington  voiced  the  gen- 
eral sentiment  when  he  said  of  that  great  drama  that  it 
could  not  be  reckoned  great  in  comparison  with  Othello, 
because  " '  a  mere  villainous  hypocrite  should  not  be  chief 
of  a  great  piece.' "  1 

This  segment  of  literature  may  not  be  more  sincere  in 
its  claim  of  truth-telling,  but  it  shows  more  art  in  its 
method;  and  it  is  perhaps  even  less  flattering  to  human 
nature  in  its  assumption  that  simple  exposure,  without 
exaggeration,  is  quite  enough. 

Nor  did  it  ever  expect  its  satire  to  prove  revolutionary. 
Peacock,  first  on  the  list,  confessed,  through  one  of  his 
characters,  of  having  been  cured  of  a  passion  for  reform- 
ing the  world,  "by  the  conviction  of  the  inefHcacy  of 
moral  theory  with  respect  to  producing  a  practical  change 
in  the  mass  of  mankind."  He  adds, — 2 

"Custom  is  the  pillar  round  which  opinion  twines,  and  inter- 
est is  the  tie  that  binds  it.  It  is  not  by  reason  that  practical 
change  can  be  effected,  but  by  making  a  puncture  to  the  quick 
in  the  feelings  of  personal  hope  and  personal  fear." 

The  fear  of  being  ridiculous  is  of  course  one  of  those 
which  may  be  punctured  to  the  quick,  and  thereby  a 
practical  change  effected.  It  is  also  true  that,  the  human 
constitution  and  capacity  being  what  they  are,  constant 

1  The  Virginians,  II,  363.  2  Melincourt,  II,  14. 


312       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

criticism  is  necessary.  It  is  the  spur,  the  brake,  the  cor- 
rective, to  inform  us  when  we  are  going  too  slow,  too  fast, 
or  in  the  wrong  direction.  It  is  not  by  nature  an  agreeable 
thing,  and  there  are  times  when  it  should  not  be  made  so. 
But  if  there  are  deeds  and  characters  beyond  the  reach 
of  humor,  it  is  equally  true,  conversely,  as  Meredith  says: 1 
"There  are  questions  as  well  as  persons  that  only  the 
Comic  can  fitly  touch."  The  paradox  arises  in  the  fact 
that  while  criticism  is  essentially  scientific,  satire  is  a 
branch  of  esthetics,  which  nevertheless  has  practical  pro- 
clivities. These  it  does  no  harm  to  exercise,  providing  it 
wreaks  no  violence  on  its  character  as  an  art.  But  the 
effect  of  satire  must  not  be  confused  with  its  quality. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  he  satirizes  best  who  reforms  most, — 
the  harvest  of  reform  from  satiric  seed  being  granted. 
Concerning  a  pitchfork  or  muckrake  there  is  no  question 
of  art:  concerning  a  statue  there  is  no  question  of  utility: 
but  satire  is  like  a  silver  spoon,  which  partakes  of  both 
qualities,  and  is  estimated  sometimes  according  to  one, 
sometimes  the  other,  and  sometimes  a  compromise  be- 
tween the  two. 

"C'est  une  etrange  entreprise"  exclaimed  Moliere,  "que 
celle  de  Jaire  rire  les  bommetes  gens"  The  strangeness  of 
it  becomes  more  striking  when  we  remember  that  the 
laughter  of  the  race  is  directed  against  itself  and  at  the 
very  things  over  which  it  is  most  sensitive, — its  own  inept 
follies  and  poor  flimsy  pretenses.  But  it  is  unendurable 
only  in  the  form  of  the  Ct  grinning  sneer"  of  Blifil.  Even 
ridicule  may  be  welcome  if  it  comes  from  the  genial 
Allworthy,  whose  "smiles  at  folly  were  indeed  such  as  we 
may  suppose  the  angels  bestow  on  the  absurdities  of 
mankind."  Not  all  satirists  are  so  benign,  but  such 

1  Essay  on  Comedy,  62. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  313 

benignity  is  not  incompatible  with  the  finest  satire.  Mere- 
dith himself,  after  writing  a  dozen  novels  permeated  with 
the  most  pungent  satire,  said  in  the  last  one  that  "if  we 
bring  reason  to  scan  our  laugh  at  pure  humanity,  it  is  we 
who  are  in  place  of  the  ridiculous,  for  doing  what  reason 
disavows."  1 

It  may  be  that  as  we  reason  more  we  laugh  less;  and 
that  brings  the  question  whether  it  were  wiser  to  check 
the  reasoning  or  quench  the  laughter.  Since,  however, 
laughter  is  likely  to  improve  in  quality  as  it  diminishes 
in  quantity,  we  may  be  content  to  abjure  the  witticism 
at  which  "the  fool  lifteth  up  his  voice  with  laughter," 
and  substitute  the  reflective  wit  over  which  "the  clever 
man  will  scarce  smile  quietly."  Such  was  the  mild  as- 
piration of  the  humorous  Victorians;  but  though  mild,  the 
spirit  was  ubiquitous.  It  gave  tone  to  the  pessimism  of 
Thompson  and  temper  to  the  optimism  of  Stevenson;  it 
colored  darkly  the  defiant  pages  of  Carlyle  and  tinged 
lightly  the  protesting  paragraphs  of  Arnold;  it  lent  an 
edge  to  the  sentiment  of  Tennyson  and  humanized  the 
philosophy  of  Browning.  It  even  dignified  the  comicality 
of  Punchy  for  Douglas  Jerrold,  at  least,  was  far  from  being 
an  irresponsible  jester.  His  gruesome  Dish  of  Glory,  with 
its  ironical  advice  to  the  French  to  eat  the  Algerians  as 
fast  as  they  conquer  them,  will  bear  comparison  with 
^he  Modest  Proposal.  The  dedication  of  volume  eight 
also  illustrates  the  new  effect  of  self-turned  irony: 

"As  young  Aurora,  with  her  blaze  of  light, 
Into  the  shade  throws  all  the  pride  of  night, 
And  pales  presumptuous  stars,  who  vainly  think 
That  every  eye  is  on  them  as  they  blink: 

1  An  Amazing  Marriage,  202. 


314        SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

So  Punchy  the  light  and  glory  of  the  time, 
His  wit  and  wisdom  brilliant  as  sublime, 
Scares  into  shades  Cant's  hypocritic  throng, 
Abashes  Folly,  and  exposes  wrong. " 

This  may  sound  like  an  echo  from  the  Elizabethans  and 
the  Augustans;  but  the  difference  wherewith  the  Vic- 
torians wear  their  rue  is  as  important  as  it  is  subtle.  The 
two  great  influences  of  their  time,  Science  and  Democracy, 
operating  upon  their  life  and  literature,  made  them  at 
once  sensitive  to  the  reasons  for  man's  shortcomings,  and 
sensible  of  the  absurd  position  of  the  avowed  castigator — 
who,  moreover,  by  his  very  situation  as  a  sharp-shooter 
renders  himself  in  turn  the  more  conspicuous  target. 

Man's  record  here  below  gives  little  cause,  it  is  true,  for 
congratulation;  so  discounted  are  his  astonishing  suc- 
cesses by  his  disheartening,  hopeless  failures.  Colossal 
in  blunder  as  in  achievement,  stupendous  in  fanaticism 
as  in  imagination,  nevertheless  he  may  maintain,  on  the 
authority  of  a  deterministic  philosophy,  that  he  has  liter- 
ally done  the  best  he  could.  His  very  faculty  of  deception 
is  often  but  an  adoption  of  that  protective  coloring  rec- 
ognized as  one  of  Nature's  most  admirable  devices.  The 
human  race  is  indeed  provocative,  but  who  that  under- 
stands can  have  the  heart  to  yield  to  the  provocation? 
Even  the  most  accomplished  satirist  of  his  time  con- 
cluded that  he  would  stick  to  sober  philosophy, — 1 

"And  irony  and  satire  off  me  throw. 
They  crack  a  childish  whip,  drive  puny  herds, 
Where  numbers  crave  their  sustenance  in  words. " 

But  though  a  knowledge  of  mortal  psychology  does 
have  a  tendency  to  take  the  starch  out  of  satire,  it  does 

1  Meredith,  in  Patience  and  Foresight. 


THE     VICTORIAN     CONTRIBUTION  315 

not  thereby  destroy  the  fabric  but  only  leaves  it  the  more 
diaphanous."  It  no  longer  rustles  and  crackles  but  flows 
instead  with  the  sweeter  liquefaction  of  Julia's  silk.  This 
gentle  diffusion  of  her  presence  is  a  less  obtrusive  role 
than  satire  has  hitherto  enjoyed  but  is  none  the  less  essen- 
tial, and  in  any  case  it  is  all  that  can  be  allowed  by  a 
scientific,  democratic  society,  too  well  informed  to  deal 
only  with  surfaces,  too  preoccupied  with  its  own  business 
and  desires,  such  as  they  are,  to  worry  much  about  the 
fiasco  others  make  of  theirs,  too  polite  to  scold  even 
with  wit,  and  too  truly  humorous  to  tolerate  the  superior 
pose. 

In  proportion  however,  as  the  individual  is  spared,  the 
burden  of  responsibility  is  shifted  to  the  collected  shoulders 
of  the  society  he  has  bound  himself  into.  Logically,  of 
course,  the  collection  is  no  more  guilty  than  its  constit- 
uents, but  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  quite  as  vulner- 
able and  capable  of  improvement,  and  yet  not  endowed 
with  personal  feelings  to  be  wounded  or  personal  ability  to 
retaliate. 

So  far  as  there  is  a  definite  Victorian  contribution  to 
the  garner  of  satire,  it  lies  in  this  democratization  of 
objects  and  rationalization  of  methods.  How  great  an 
impulse  the  Victorians  £ave  to  the  era  of  agnosticism 
and  revaluation  of  all  ideals  whose  inception  so  troubled 
the  waters  of  their  reluctant  souls,  we  never  can  know. 
What  Shaw,  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck,  Rostand,  even  Wells 
and  Nietzsche,  would  have  been  without  Peacock,  Dis- 
raeli, Carlyle,  Dickens,  George  Eliot,  Huxley,  Meredith, 
and  Butler,  is  a  question  that  admits  of  a  wide  solution. 
But  it  is  assuredly  as  foolish  to  disdain  the  offerings  of  a 
past  generation,  however  erring,  ignorant,  and  prejudiced 
we  may  consider  it  in  the  light  of  our  own  emancipation 


316       SATIRE     IN     THE     VICTORIAN     NOVEL 

and  advancement,  as  to  suppose  that  we  shall  count  for 
more  than  our  due  modicum  in  the  centuries  to  come. 

However  that  may  be,  we  have  as  yet  invented  nothing 
to  surpass  the  general  Victorian  satiric  philosophy, — that 
the  wisest  reaction  to  life  is  a  high  seriousness  graced  with 
humor,  and  the  most  acceptable  attitude  toward  one's 
fellow  creatures  is  a  compassionate  comprehension  of  our 
common  tragedy,  redeemed  from  emotionalism  by  an 
ironic  appreciation  of  the  human  comedy. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Since  the  bibliography  of  this  subject  is  necessarily  too  ex- 
tensive to  be  cited  in  full,  the  following  list  includes  only  those 
volumes  of  especial  importance,  particularly  in  the  field  of 
satire.  For  convenience  the  list  is  classified  according  to  the 
main  divisions  of  the  material. 


ON  SATIRE 

Alden,  R.  M. :  The  Rise  of  Formal  Satire  in  England  under  Clas- 
sical Influence.  Univ.  of  Penn.  Pub.,  Phil.  Series,  VII,  2, 
1902. 

Bergson,  Henri:  Laughter.  (Translated  by  Brereton  and  Roth- 
well.)  Macmillan,  1912. 

Brown,  John:  An  Essay  on  Satire.  In  Dodsley's  Collection  of 
Poems. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of:  An  Essay  on  Satire.  In  the  Scott- 
Saintsbury  edition  of  Dry  den,  XV. 

Dryden,  John:  Essay  on  Satire.    Above,  XIII. 

Flogel,  Karl.  Geschichte  des  Grotesk  Komischen  in  Litterature, 
(reprinted.)  1886. 

Garnett,  Richard:  Article  on  Satire  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica. 

Hannay,  James:  Satire  and  Satirists.    Redfield,  1856. 

Henderson,  E.  F.:  Symbol  and  Satire  in  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Putnam,  1912. 

Lenient,  C. :  La  Satire  en  France  au  Moyen  Age.  Hachette,  1859. 

Lenient,  C.:  La  Satire  en  France  au  XV  et  XVI  Siecles.  Hach- 
ette, 1866. 

Meredith,  George:  Essay  on  Comedy.     Scribner. 


318  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE  / 

Morris,  Corbyn :  An  Essay  towards  fixing  the  True  Standards 
of  Wi^  Humour,  Raillery,  Satire,  and  Ridicule.  London, 

1743- 
Neff,  T.  L.    La  Satire  des  Femmes  dans  la  Poesie  Lyrique  Fran- 

cais  du  Moyen  Age.     Paris,  1900. 

Previte-Orton,  C.  W. :  Political  Satire  in  English  Poetry.    Cam- 
bridge University  Press,  1910. 
Schneegans,  H.:  Geschichte  der  Grotesken  Satire.      Strassburg, 

1984. 
Tucker,  S.  M. :  Verse-Satire  in  England  before  the  Renaissance. 

Columbia  University  Press,  1908. 

Comments  on  satire  of  a  more  incidental  and  yet  interesting 
nature  are  found  in  prefaces  and  translations,  in  essays  on  kin- 
dred topics,  and  in  general  histories  of  literature.  (In  some  cases 
it  is  hard  to  decide  to  which  group  a  given  citation  should  be 
assigned.  A  few  are  practically  interchangeable.) 
Ball,  A.  P.:  The  Satire  of  Seneca.  Columbia  University  Press, 

1902. 
Besant,  Sir  Walter:  The  French  Humourists  from  the  Twelfth  to 

the  Nineteenth  Centuries.     Bentley,  1873. 
Boileau,  Nicolas:  A  short    prose    treatise  published  with  the 

Satires. 
Bourne,  Randolph:  The    Life  of   Irony.      Atlantic  Monthly, 

ni,  357. 

Cannan,  Gilbert:  Satire.     (Short  monograph.)     Doran. 

Chesterton,  G.  K. :  Pope  and  the  Art  of  Satire.  In  Varied  Types. 
Dodd,  Mead,  1908. 

Fuess,  C.  M.:  Lord  Byron  as  a  Satirist  in  Verse.  Columbia 
University  Press,  1912. 

Headlam,  Cecil :  Selections  from  the  British  Satirists.  Robin- 
son, 1897. 

Jackson,  Thomas:  The  Use  of  Irony.  Introductory  Essay  to 
A  Narrative  of  the  Fire  of  London,  by  Peter  Maritzburg. 
London,  1869. 

L'Estrange,  A.  G. :  History  of  English  Humour.  London, 
1877. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE  319 

Matthews,  Brander:  On  American  Satire  in  Verse.     Harper's 

Magazine,   CIV,   294. 

Myres,  Ernest:  English  Satire  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.     Liv- 
ing Age,  1882. 
Paley,  F.  A. :  Fragments  of  the  Greek  Comic  Poets.     Macmillan, 

1892. 

"  Smeaton,  W.  H. :  English  Satires.    London,  1899. 
Stokes,  F.  G.  (editor) :  Epistola  Obscurorum  Vivorum.     Chatto 

and  Wind  us,  1909. 
Symonds,  J.  A.:  The  Renaissance  in   Italy.       (Vol.  V,  Chap. 

XIV.)    Holt,  1888. 

.  Taine,  H.  A. :   History  of  English  Literature.     Chapter  on  Thack- 
eray. 
t  Ullman,  B.  L.:  Horace  on  the  Nature  of  Satire.     Transactions 

of  the  American  Philological  Association,  1917. 
Van  Laun,  H. :  History  of  French  Literature.     Introduction,  and 

Book  IV,  Chap.  I.     Putman,  1876. 

Wright,  Thomas:   Anglo-Saxon  Satirical   Poets   and  Epigram- 
matists of  the  Twelfth  Century.    London,  1872. 
L  Wright,  Thomas :  A  History  of  Caricature  and  Grotesque  in  Lit- 
erature and  Art9  1865. 

The  satirists  themselves  who  have  been  sufficiently  self-con- 
scious of  their  art  to  discuss  it  more  or  less  include,  on  the  Con- 
tinent, Horace,  Juvenal,  Lucian,  Cervantes,  and  Boileau;  and 
in  England,  Barclay,  Skelton,  Gascoigne,  Marston,  Jonson, 
Defoe,  Swift,  Pope,  Young,  Johnson,  Fielding,  Churchill,  Cow- 
per,  Wolcott,  Gifford,  Byron,  Peacock,  Thackeray,  Dickens, 
Trollope,  and  Meredith. 

II 
ON  THE  NOVEL 

Brownell,  W.  C.:  Victorian  Prose  Masters.  Doubled  ay,  Page, 
1902. 

Brownell,  W.  C.:  The  Novelists.  (Warner  Classics.)  Double- 
day,  Page,  1905. 


320  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE 

Burton,  Richard:  Masters  of  the  English  Novel.      Holt,  1909. 
Cross,  W.  L.:  Development  of  the  English  Novel     Macmillan, 

1905. 

Dawson,  W.  J. :  Makers  of  English  Fiction.    Revell,  1905. 
Holliday,  Carl:  English  Fiction.     Century,  1912. 
Lord,  W.  F. :  The  Mirror  of  the  Century.    Lane,  1906. 
Oliphant,  James:  Victorian  Novelists.    Blackie,  1899. 
Phelps,  W.  L.:  Advance  of  the  English  Novel.     Dodd,  Mead, 

1916. 

Raleigh,  Walter:  The  English  Novel.    Murray,  1911. 
Saintsbury,  George:  The  English  Novel.    Dutton,  1913. 
Stoddard,  F.  L.:  Evolution  of  the  English  Novel.     Macmillan, 
1909. 

On  the  Nineteenth  Century  in  general  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant volumes  are: 
Brandes,  Georg:   Main   Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Liter" 

ature.     London,   1905. 

Bryce,   James:   Studies   in    Contemporary   Biography.       Mac- 
millan, 1903. 

Chesterton,  G.  K. :  The  Victorian  Age  in  Literature.    Holt,  1914. 
Gosse,  Edmund:  English  Literature  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Putnam,  1901. 

Harrison,  Frederic :  Studies  in  Early  Victorian  Literature.  Long- 
mans, 1906. 
Magnus,  Laurie:    English  Literature  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Putnam,  1909. 
Saintsbury,  George:   History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature. 

Macmillan,  1899. 
Saintsbury,  George:    The  Later  Nineteenth  Century.    In  Periods 

of  European  Literature.     Blackwood,  1907. 
Walker,  Hugh:    Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era.     Cambridge 

University  Press,  1901. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE  321 

III 

ON  THE  NOVELISTS 

Bronte. 

Birrell,  Augustine:    Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.    Walter  Scott, 

1887. 

Gaskell,  Mrs.:    Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.    Harper,  1902. 
Goldring,  Maude:    Charlotte  Bronte,  the  Woman;  a  Study. 

Scribner,  1916. 
Shorter,  C.  K.:     The  Brontes:  Life  and  Letters.    Scribner, 

1900. 

Butler. 

Cannan,  Gilbert:    Samuel  Butler,  a  Critical  Study.    Lon- 
don, 1915. 

Harris,  J.  E.;    Samuel  Butler,  Author  of  Erewhon.    Lon- 
don, 1916. 

Dickens. 

Chesterton,   G.   K.:     Charles  Dickens,   a  Critical  Study. 

Dodd,  Mead,  1906. 
Chesterton,  G.  K. :    Appreciation  and  Criticism  of  the  Works 

of  Charles  Dickens.     Dent,  1911. 
Cooper,  F.  T.:    (Translator  from  the  French  of  Keine  and 

Lumet,  in  the  Great  Men  Series.)    Stokes,  1914. 
Crotch,  W.  W.:  The  Pageant  of  Dickens.     Chapman  and 

Hall,  1916. 
The  Soul  of  Dickens.    Chapman  and  Hall, 

1916. 

Charles  Dickens,  Social  Reformer.    Chap- 
man and  Hall,  1916. 
Fitzgerald,  P.  H.:  The  Life  of  Charles  Dickens  as  Revealed 

in  his  Works.    Chatto  and  Windus,  1905. 
Forster,  John:  Life  of  Charles  Dickens.     (Now  included 
with  the  Gadshill  edition).    Chapman  and  Hall,  1904. 


322  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE 

Gissing,  George:  Charles  Dickens,  a  Critical  Study.  Dodd, 
Mead,  1898. 

Hughes,  J.  L.:  Dickens  as  an  Educator.    Appleton,  1901. 

Marzials,  Sir  Frank:  Life  of  Charles  Dickens.  Walter 
Scott,  1887. 

Swinburne,  C.  A.:  Charles  Dickens.    London,  1913. 

Ward,  A.  W.:  Charles  Dickens.  (Men  of  Letters.)  Har- 
per, 1901. 

Disraeli. 

Arnot,  Robert:  The  Earl  of  Beacons  field.    Dunn,  1904. 
Brandes,   Georg:  Lord  Beaconsfield,   a   Study.     Scribner, 

1880. 
Froude,   J.   A.:  Lord  Beaconsfield.     (Prime  Ministers   of 

Queen  Victoria.)     London,  1890. 
Mill,   John:  Disraeli,  the  Author,   Orator,  and   Statesman. 

London,  1863. 
Money  penny  and  Buckle:  Life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli.    Mac- 

millan,  1916. 
O'Connor,  T.  P.:  Lord  Beaconsfield,  a  Biography.    Fisher 

Unwin,  1905. 

Eliot. 

Blind,  Mathilde:  George  Eliot.  (Eminent  Women.)  Al- 
len, 1884. 

Browning,  Oscar:  Life  of  George  Eliot.  (Great  Writers). 
Walter  Scott,  1892. 

Cooke,  G.  W.:  George  Eliot,  a  Critical  Study.  Houghton, 
Mifflin,  1883. 

Cross,  J.  W.:  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Eliot.  Blackwood, 
1885. 

Stephen,  Leslie:  George  Eliot.  (Men  of  Letters.)  Mac- 
millan,  1902. 

Thomson,  Clara:  George  Eliot.  (Westminster  Biogra- 
phies.) Paul,  Trench,  1901. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE  323 

Gaskell. 

Shorter,  Clement:  Life  of  Mrs.  Gaskell.  (Men  of  Letters.) 
Macmillan,  1904. 

Kingsley. 

Kaufman,  M.:  Charles  Kingsley,    Christian   Socialist  and 

Social  Reformer.     London,  1892. 

Stubbs,  C.  W.:  Charles  Kingsley  and  the  Christian  Social 
Movement.  (Victorian  Era.)  London,  1899. 

Lytton. 

Cooper,  Thomas:  Lord  Lytton.  (Men  of  the  Time.)  Rout- 
ledge,  1873. 

Lytton,  Earl  of:  Life  of  Edward  Bulwer,  first  Lord  Lytton. 
Macmillan,  1913. 

Meredith. 

Bailey,  E.  J.:  The  Novels  of  George  Meredith.  Scribner,  1907. 

Beach,  J.  W.:  The  Comic  Spirit  in  Meredith.  Longmans, 
Green,  1911. 

Crees,  J.  H.  E.:  George  Meredith,  a  Study.  Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press,  1918. 

Curie,  R.  H.  P.:  Aspects  of  George  Meredith.    Dutton,  1908. 

Hammerton,  J.  A.:  George  Meredith  in  Anecdote  and  Crit- 
cism.  London,  1909. 

Le  Gallienne,  Richard:  George  Meredith,  Some  Character- 
istics. Lane,  1915. 

Lynch,  Hannah:  George  Meredith.    London,  1891. 

Moffat,  James:  A  Primer  to  the  Novels  of  George  Meredith. 
London,  1909. 

Trevelyan,  G.  M.:  The  Poetry  and  Philosophy  of  George 
Meredith.  London,  1913. 

Peacock. 

Freeman,  A.  M.:  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  a  Critical  Study. 
Kennerley,  1911. 


324  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE 

Paul,  H.:  The  Novels  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock.     London, 

1904. 
Van  Doren,  Carl:  Life  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  Dutton, 

1911. 
Young,  A.  B.:  Life  and  Novels  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock. 

Norwich,  1904. 

Reade. 

Coleman,  John:  Charles  Reade.    London,  1903. 

Thackeray. 

Benjamin,  L.  S.:  (Lewis  Melville.)  William  Makepeace 
Thackeray,  a  Biography.  Lane,  1910. 

Benjamin,  L.  S.:  Some  Aspects  of  Thackeray.  Little, 
Brown,  1911. 

Chesterton  and  Melville:  Thackeray.     London,  1903. 

Jack,  A.  A.:  Thackeray,  a  Study.    London,  1895. 

Merivale  and  Marzials:  Life  of  William  Makepeace  Thac- 
keray. Scott,  1891. 

Trollope,  Anthony:  William  Makepeace  Thackeray.  (Men 
of  Letters.)  Macmillan,  1905. 

Whibley,  Charles:  William  Makepeace  Thackeray.  (Mod- 
ern English  Writers.)  London,  1904. 

Trollope. 

Escott,  Thomas:  Anthony  Trollope.     Lane,  1913. 

Nearly  half  these  novelists  left  collections  of  letters.  Lyt- 
ton's  and  George  Eliot's  were  published  with  their  biographies. 
The  others  are: 

Dickens.     Edited  by  Mamie  Dickens  and  Georgina  Ho- 
garth.   Latest  edition,  Macmillan,  1893. 
Meredith.    Edited  by  his  son.    Scribner,  1912. 
Thackeray. 

A  Collection  of  Letters  of  Thackeray.     (To  the  Brook- 
fields.)     Scribner,  1887. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE  325 

Letters  of  Thackeray  to  an  American  Family.     Smith, 

Elder,   1904. 
Some  Family  Letters  of  William  Makepeace  Thackeray. 

Hough  ton,  Mifflin,  1911. 

The  only  autobiography  is  Trollope's.  Edited  by  H.  M. 
Trollope.  Harper,  1883. 

Two  especially  noteworthy  pieces  of  editorial  Introduction 
should  be  mentioned:  Garnett's  for  Peacock,  and  Mrs.  Ritchie's 
for  Thackeray.  Among  the  many  essays  and  shorter  studies 
are  the  following: 

Bronte,  in  Gates's  Studies  and  Appreciations;  and  Swin- 
burne's A  Note  on  Charlotte  Bronte. 

Eliot,  in  Darmstetter's  English  Studies,  Dowden's  Studies 
in  Literature,  Morley's  Critical  Miscellanies,  Myers* 
Modern  Essays,  and  Sherer's  Essays  on  English  Lit- 
erature. X 

Meredith,  in  Elton's  Modern  Studies,  Henderson's  Inter- 
preters of  Life  and  the  Modern  Spirit,  and  Sherman's 
On  Contemporary  Literature.  Forman  is  editor  of  a 
volume  Some  Early  Appreciations  of  Meredith. 

Reade,  in  Swinburne's  Miscellanies. 

Trollope,  in  Bradford's  A  Naturalist  of  Souls,  and  Julian 
Hawthorne's  Confessions  in  Criticism. 

And  finally  there  are  certain  combinations  and  groups,  such  as: 

Bronte  and  Eliot,  in  Bonnell's  Charlotte  Bronte,  George 

Eliot,  and  Jane  Austen. 
Bronte,  Dickens,  Eliot,  Thackeray,  and  Trollope,  in  Saints- 

bury's   Corrected  Impressions;   and    Peacock,   in   his 

Essays  in  English  Literature. 
Bronte,  Disraeli,  Kingsley,  and  Eliot,  in  Stephen's  Hours 

in  a  Library;  and  Trollope,  in  his  Studies  of  a  Biog- 

rapher. 


326  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE 

Dickens  and  Thackeray,  in  Bagehot's  Literary  Studies, 
and  Field's  Yesterdays  with  Authors. 

Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  Eliot,  in  Clark's  Study  of  Eng- 
lish Prose  Writers. 

Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  Kingsley,  in  Lang's  Essays  in 
Little. 

Dickens  and  Lytton,  in  Home's  New  Spirit  of  the  Age. 
J    Dickens,  in  Hutton's  Criticism  on  Contemporary  Thought 
and  Thinkers,  and  Eliot,  in  his  Essays  on  Some  Mod- 
ern Guides  to  English  Thought. 

Dickens,  Disraeli,  Gaskell,  and  Meredith,  in  More's  Shel- 
burne  Essays. 

Disraeli  and  Peacock,  in  Garnett's  Essays  of  an  ex-Libra- 
rian. 
/    Eliot,  in  Berle's  George  Eliot  and  Thomas  Hardy. 

Eliot  and  Trollope,  in  James's  Partial  Portraits. 

The  following  editions  of  the  novelists  are  those  referred  to 
in  the  text. 

Bronte. 

Jane  Eyre.    Haworth  edition.    Harper. 
Shirley  and  Villette.    Dent  edition. 

Butler. 

Erewhon  and  Erewhon  Revisited.    Dutton. 

The  Way  of  All  Flesh.    Modern  Library  edition.     Boni  and 
Liveright. 

Dickens. 

Pickwick,  Oliver  Twist,  Nicholas  Nickleby,  Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit,  Hard  Times,  Little  Dorrit,  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  Our 
Mutual  Friend.  Hearst  International  edition. 

Great  Expectations,  and  Edwin  Drood.    The  Jefferson  Press. 

Dombey  and  Son.     CrowelL 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL     NOTE  327 

Barndby  Rudge.    Chapman  and  Hall. 
Disraeli.     Longmans,   Green. 

Eliot. 

Middlemarch  and  Mill  on  the  Floss.     Blackwood. 
All  the  others,  Scribners'  Standard  edition. 

Gaskell.      Smith,  Elder. 

Kingsley.     Macmillan. 

Lytton.    Knebworth  edition.    Routledge  and  Sons. 

Meredith. 

Sandra  Belloni,  Celt  and  Saxon,  and  One  of  Our  Conquer- 
ors: Scribner. 
All  the  others,  Constable. 

Peacock.     Aldine  edition.     Dent. 
Reade.     Dana  Estes. 

Trollope. 

Cathedral  Series  and  The  Claverings:  Smith,  Elder. 

Manor  House  Series.     Dodd,  Mead. 

The  Bertrams.     Harper. 

The  Way  We  Live  Now.     Chapman  and  Hall. 

Thackeray.     Dana  Estes. 


INDEX 


Absalom  and  Achitophel,  12  n. 

Adam  Bede,  152,252,  277,  309  f. 

Addison,  Joseph,  48,  89. 

Adventures  of  an  Atom,  193. 

Adventures  of  Philip,  The,  186. 

Alden,  R.  M.,  40. 

Alice,  158. 

Alton  Locke,  131,  191  n.,  198,  212  f., 
221. 

Amazing  Marriage,  An,  98,  157,  203, 
274,  283,  3090.,  313. 

Anti- Jacobin,  The,  169. 

Apology  for  Smectymnuus,  An,  12. 

Ariosto,  L.,  124. 

Aristophanes;  his  comedy,  4,  8;  com- 
ments by  Cope  and  White,  19,  48, 
78,  204,  304. 

Aristophanes'  Apology,  10,  15,  34,  37. 

Aristotle,  7,  49. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  49,  134,  177,  223, 

313,  3I5. 
Austen,  Jane,  49,  84,  112,  123  n.,  129, 

134  n.,  156,  238,  245,  306. 
Author,  The,  17. 
Autobiography,  (Trollope's),  52  n. 

Bacon,  Francis,  273. 

Barchester  Towers,  88,  108  f.,  209. 

Barclay,  Alexander,  21  n.,  243. 

Barnaby  Rudge,  96. 

Barry  Lyndon,  78,  79,  148. 

Beauchamp's    Career,   88,   98  f.,    115, 

155,  160,  174,  192,  197,  213  f.,  224, 

301,  302. 

Bergson,  Henri,  7,  28. 
Bertrams,  The,  142,  202  f.,  208  f.,  221. 
Bigelow  Papers,  The,  4,  168. 


Birrell,  Augustine,  35. 

Blackmore,  Sir  Richard,  46. 

Blake,  William,  49. 

Bleak  House,  97,  140,  141,  202. 

Boileau,  N.,  48. 

Book  of  Snobs,  The,  206  f.,  219  f.,  286. 

Bourne,  Randolph,  128. 

Bright,  John,  170,  204. 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  46,  49,  50,  85,  92, 
116,  130,  131,  156,  170,  180,  183  f., 
191,  210,  218,  231,  260,  270,  271, 
279>  285,  301. 

Brown,  John,  12  f,  36,  123  n. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  176. 

Browning,  Robert,  10,  15,  34,  37,  49, 
76,  98,  172  n.,  313. 

Bryce,  James,  84  n. 

Buckingham,  2nd  Duke  of,  9. 

Burns,  Robert,  48. 

Burton,  Robert,  49. 

Butler,  Samuel,  46,  48,  61,  62,  63  f., 
81,  82,  87,  128,  130,  145,  180,  187, 
190,  191,  198,  202,  210,  214,  218, 

219,  221,  222,  23 1,  246  n.,  269,  270, 

273,  278,  280,  287,  290  n.,  294,  295, 
301,306,307,  315. 

Byron,  Lord,  iin.,  17,  28,  35,  48, 
76,  169,  171,  173,  177,  223,  289, 
304,  306. 

Cannan,  Gilbert,  69  n. 
Candidate,  The,  16. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  38  n.,  49,  177,  195, 
204,  222  n.,  228,  236  n.,  294,  313, 

315. 

Catherine,  62  n.,  79,  148. 
Caxtons,  The,  25 


329 


330 


INDEX 


Cervantes,  4,  9  n.,  25,  48,  51,  67  n., 

70,  175  f.,  307. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  286. 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  65  n.,  71  n.,  195, 

246  n. 

Churchill,  Charles,  6,  16  f.,  48. 
Claudius,  169. 

Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  The,  88. 
Coffee  House  Politician,  The,  23. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  171  f.,  173,  177. 
Collins,  Wilkie,  46. 
Colloquies  of  Society,  173  n. 
Colyn  Clout,  21  n.,  301. 
Coming  Race,  The,  63  n.,  68,  72,  81, 

133,  193,  227. 
Coningsby,  170,  174,  299. 
Covent  Garden  Journal,  The,  9  n. 
Cowper,  William,   17  n.,   18,  33,  49, 

176. 

Cranford,  88. 
Croce,  Benedetto,  4. 
Crochet  Castle,  62,  132,  145,  171,  220. 
Crotch,  W.  W.,  246  n. 

Daniel  Deronda,  236  f.,  251,  253  n., 
281,  292,  310. 

Dante,  49. 

David  Copperfield,  78,  199,  218,.  219, 
250,  300. 

Dawson,  W.  J.,  15. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  12, 17,  22, 49,  70,  74  n., 
89,  128,  183. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  14,  33,  49,  128. 

Dewey,  John,  5. 

Dickens,  Charles,  46,  48,  53,  92,  95  f., 
130,  157,  170,  174,  183,  187,  190, 
191,  195,  198,  199,  202,  203,  205, 
218,  222  n.,  231,  234,  235,  237,  238, 
240,  244,  247,  249,  250,  260,  262, 
269,  270,  271,  272,  273,  278,  285, 
287,  290,  315. 

Diana  of  the  Crossways,  161,  185,  214, 
239,  276,  284,  298,  302. 


Dinner  of  Trimalchio,  The,  127. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  45,  47,  49,  51,  52, 
61,  62,  72  f.,  77,  81,  82,  89,  123, 
130,  134,  156,  170,  173,  174,  187, 

188,     191,     193  f.,     198,     202,     210, 

216,  225,  231,  244,  271,  279,^99, 

3i5- 

Doctor  Thorne,  143,  192. 
Dombey  and  Son,  138,  141,  218,  219, 

250  f. 

Domitian,  67,  169. 
Don  Juan,  4,  76,  82. 
Don  Quixote,  82,  127. 
Donne,  John,  48. 
Dowden,  Edward,  191. 
Dryden,  John,   12,  21  f.,  48,   123  n., 

286. 

Duke's  Children,  The,  217  n.,  240. 
Dunbar,  William,  48. 
Dunciad,  The,  82,  169. 

Edwin  Drood,  232,  270. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  84. 

Egoist,  The,  78,  88,  98,  100,  101,  153, 
1841".,  277,  283,  293. 

Eliot,  George,  46,  47,  49,  92,  116,  130, 
152,  157,  170,  177,  180,  183,  191, 
205,  216,  235,  236,  247,  251,  253, 
256,  257,  261,  273,  274,  277,  278, 
280,  281,  285,  287,  291,  295,  309, 

3i5- 

Emma,  78. 

England  and  the  English,  225. 

English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers, 

17- 

English  Humorists,  The,  50. 

English   Novel,    The    (Raleigh's),    26, 

304- 

Epistle  to  William  Hogarth,  16. 
Epistles  to  the  Literati,  174. 
Erasmus,  49. 
Erewhon,  63  n.,  68,  81,  82,  146  f.,  190, 

202,  214  f.,  227. 


INDEX 


331 


Erewhon  Revisited,  63  n.,  69,  81,  216, 

290  n. 
Essay  on  Comedy,  An,  14,  27  f.,  3 1  n., 

36  n.,  160,  293,  312. 
Essay  on  Satire,  (Brown's),  12  f.,  36, 

123  n.  (Dryden's),  21  n.,  22,  123  n. 
Ettrick  Shepherd,  The,  I,  174  n. 
Euripides,  48. 
Evan  Harrington,  161,  162,  190,  255, 

284,  307,  308  f. 
Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  8. 

Fair  Haven,  The,  69. 

Farina,  63  n.,  79,  81. 

Fatal  Boots,  The,  103. 

Felix  Holt,  158  n.,  170,  192,  198,  236, 

251,  291,  3040. 
Ferrier,  Susan,  HI,  238. 
Fielding,  Henry,  9,  14,  22  f.,  28,  37  n., 

48,  51  n.,  89,  91,  286,  303. 
Framley  Parsonage,  119  f.,  142,  143  f., 

196,  207,  309. 

France,  Anatole,  49,  124,  246  n. 
Freeman,  A.  M.,  66  n. 
Fuess,  C.  M.,  28. 

Galsworthy,  John,  125. 

Garnett,  Richard,  10,  36,  67  n.,  303. 

Gascoigne,  George,  25,  48. 

Gaskell,  Elizabeth  Cleghorn,  45,  49, 
84,  92,  130,  157,  183,  191,  195,  205, 
216,  247,  270,  279,  285,  287,  306. 

Gay,  John,  6. 

Getting  Married,  180. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  49. 

Gifford,  William,  14,  17,  48,  171. 

Godolphin,  234,  276. 

Golden  Ass,  The,  127. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  48. 

Great  Expectations,  160. 

Great  Hoggarty  Diamond,  The,  62  n., 

79- 

Gryll  Grange,  63  n.,  65,  67. 
Gulliver's  Travels,  68,  82,  89. 


Hall,  Joseph,  35,  48,  124,  289. 

Hannay,  James,  2. 

Hard  Times,  138,  198,  218. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  46,  49,  156,  223. 

Harris,  J.  E.,  71  f. 

Harry  Richmond,  98. 

Hazlitt,  William,  30  n. 

Headlam,  Cecil,  286. 

Headlong  Hall,  62  n.,  171. 

Hebrew  Adversary,  The,  2. 

Hebrew  Prophets,  The,  48. 

Heinsius,  Daniel,  40  n. 

Herford,  C.  H.,  21. 

Henry  Esmond,  88. 

Historical  Register,  The,  9. 

Homer,  49. 

Hood,  Thomas,  48. 

Hook,  Theodore,  170. 

Horace,  6,  7,  n,  21,  25,  32f.,  48,  60, 

286,  289. 

Humor,  5,  7,  59,  83,  86,  280. 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  127. 
Huxley,  Thomas,  177,  315. 
Hypatia,  88. 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  71. 

Imaginary  Conversations,  27,  34. 

Infernal  Marriage,   The,  62  n.,  76  f., 

198. 

Intriguing  Chambermaid,  The,  22. 
Irony,  50,  121  f.,  129,  163  f. 
Isaiah,  297. 
Ixion,  62  n.,  76,  81,  173,  203  f.,  223. 

James,  William,  305. 
Jane  Eyre,  88,  218. 
Jerrold,  Douglas,  313. 
Job,  2,  48. 

Johnson,  Lionel,  22,  35,  176. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  35,  49,  286. 
Jonson,  Ben,  8,  48,  59,  229. 
Jordan,  David  Starr,  243. 
Joseph  Andrews,  78. 


33* 


INDEX 


Journey  from  this  World  to  the  Next,  A, 

68. 

Journey  to  Parnassus,  A,  175  n.,  176. 
Juvenal,  6,   n,  21,  37,  48,  169,  286, 

289. 

Kenelm  Chillingly,  113  f.,  133,  188, 
221  n.,  274. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  46,  49,  50  n.,  92, 
130,  131,  156,  174,  180,  185  f.,  187, 
191,  195,  210,  212,  215  n.,  219, 
221,  231,  236  n.,  248  n.,  249,  252  n., 
260,  270,  271,  273,  279,  287,  298  f., 
301. 

Kingsley,  Henry,  46. 

Knight,  Charles,  53. 

Lamb,  Charles,  6,  129,  175. 

Landor,  W.  S.,  27,  34. 

Langland,  W.,  49. 

Last  Chronicles  of  Bar  set,  The,  109, 
118,  237,  261. 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  The,  88. 

Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  201  n. 

Legend  of  the  Rhine,  The,  62  n.,  79,  81. 

Lenient,  C,  163,  181. 

Letters  to  Obscure  Men,  127. 

Little  Dorrit,  97,  199. 

Lodge,  Thomas,  48. 

Looking  Backward,  73,  227. 

Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta,  185. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost,  78. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  168,  193. 

Lucian,  4,  9  n.,  27,  125,  126. 

Lucretius,  49. 

Lydgate,  John,  148,  243. 

Lytton,  E.  Bulwer,  45,  49,  61,  62,  68, 
72  f.,  8 1,  82,  85,  89,  130,  157,  173, 
174  f.,  177,  183,  187,  191,  192  f., 
198,  205,  219,  222  n.,  225,  227,  231, 
234,  237,  244,  249,  259,  270,  271, 
272,  275,  278,  279,  285,  286,  300, 
306. 


Macaulay,  T.  B.,  173  n. 

MacDonald,  George,  46. 

MacFlecknoe,  169. 

Madame  Bovary,  6l. 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  16,  315. 

Maid  Marian,  62  n.,  65,  79,  8l,  145. 

Makers  of  English  Fiction,  15. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  177. 

Maltr avers,  234  f.,  237. 

Mansfield  Park,  209. 

Man  and  Superman,  4. 

Marston,  John,  12,  17. 

Martin  Chuzzlewit,  84,  101,  134,  137. 

Mary  Barton,  88,  198,  298,  306. 

Masefield,  John,  128. 

Massey,  Gerald,  170. 

Melincourt,  62  n.,  81,  171,  172,  173, 
182  f.,  192,  205,  226,  247  f.,  311. 

Meredith,  George,  2,  14,  27,  28,  3 1  n., 
46,  47,  48,  50  n.,  54,  61,  62,  71  n., 
77,  79,  81,  82,  92,  97  f.,  117,  130, 
152,  157,  170,  180,  183,  184,  187, 
190,  192,  195,  213  f.,  216,  217  n., 
222,  223,  224,  231,  240,  242,  244, 
245,  247,  253,  254,  255,  256,  257, 
258  f.,  262,  269,  270,  273,  274,  275, 
276,  278,  280-287,  293,  295,  298, 
301,302,308,312,313,315. 

Middlemarch,  151,  158,  192,  238,  253, 
274,281,  291,292,304. 

Mill  on  the  Floss,  The,  150,  238,  274. 

Milnes,  R.  M.,  170. 

Milton,  John,  1 2,  49. 

Misfortunes  of  Elphin,  The,  62  n.,  65, 
8 1,  192,  206. 

Modern  Utopia,  A,  68. 

Modest  Proposal,  A,  147,  313. 

Moliere,  Jean-Baptiste,  28,  73  n.,  312. 

Moore,  Thomas,  48. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  49. 

Morris,  Corbyn,  129. 

Morris,  William,  227. 

My  Novel,  91,  235,  244  n. 


INDEX 


333 


Napoleon,  169. 

Nero,  169. 

Never  too  Late  to  Mend,  199,  300. 

New  Atlantis,  The,  68. 

New  Machiavelli,  The,  287. 

New  Republic,  The,  177. 

Newcomes,  The,  192,  277,  307  n. 

News  from  Nowhere,  227. 

Nicholas  Nickleby,  96,  139,  140,  218, 

233- 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  125,  315. 
Night  and  Morning,  193,  199,  234. 
Nightmare  Abbey,  62  n.,  64,  171,  172, 

223,  272. 

Noctes  Ambrosianae,  173. 
North,  Christopher,  I,  174  n.,  187  n. 
North  and  South,  198,  205,  248. 
Northanger  Abbey,  62  n.,  78. 
Novels  by  Eminent  Hands,  62  n.,  79, 

174. 

Old  Curiosity  Shop,  The,  202. 

Old  Wives'  Tale,  An,6i. 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  65  n. 

Oliver  Twist,  95,  95,  137,  139,  270. 

One  of  our  Conquerors,  154,  160,  179, 

197,  223  f.,  284,  302. 
Orley  Farm,  160,  202. 
Our  Mutual  Friend,  106  f.,  202. 

Patience  and  Foresight,  3 14. 

Paul  Clifford,  51  n.,  96  n.,  198. 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  45,  48,  51  n., 
52,  61,  62,  63  f.,  77,  79,  8 1,  82,  87, 
130,  144,  170,  180,  182,  183,  191, 
192,  194,  198,  203,  205,  219,  225, 
231,  234,  247,  259,  269,  270,  272, 
278,  281,  287,  294,  303,  305  f.,  311, 

3I5- 

Peg  Woffington,  88. 

Pelham,  107,  132,  173,  177,  187,  188, 

192,  194,  221,  223,  276  n. 
Pendennis,  94,  150. 


Persius,  8,  169. 

Peter  Pindar,  177  f. 

Phineas  Finn,  141,  184. 

Phineas  Redux,  170. 

Pickwick,  78,  88,  199,  202,  232. 

Piers  Plowman,  82. 

Plato,  49. 

Political    Satire    in    English   Poetry, 

29. 

Pope,  Alexander,  12,  33,  35,  48. 
Praise  of  Folly,  127. 
Previte-Orton,  C.  W.,  29. 
Pride  and  Prejudice,  134  n. 
Punch,  313. 
Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  198,  300. 

Rabelais,  Francois,  67  n. 

Raleigh,  Walter,  26,  123  n.,  304. 

Ralph  the  Heir,  260  f. 

Rape  of  the  Lock,  The,  4. 

Reade,  Charles,  46,  47,  49,  52,  92, 
130,  157,  191,  195,  198,  199  f.,  205, 
216,  224  f.,  231,  249,  270,  273,  279, 
287. 

Rebecca  and  Rowena,  62  n.,  78  n.,  79. 

Renaissance  in  Italy,  The,  15,  124. 

Reynard  the  Fox,  2,  82. 

Rhoda  Fleming,  162,  241  f.,  256,  274. 

Richard  Feverel,  163,  216,  257  n.,  274. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  51  n. 

Romance  of  the  Rose,  The,  82. 

Romola,  151,  252,  274,  305. 

Rose  and  the  Ring,  The,  63  n.,  79. 

Rostand,  Edmond,  78,  256  n. 

Saintsbury,  George,  60,  129. 

Sandra  Belloni,  154,  155,  190,  254, 
255  f. 

Satire,  I,  2,  4,  5  f.,  10,  iif.,  19  f., 
32  f.,  41  f.,  48  f.,  50  f.,  59,  82  f., 
86  f.,  167  f.,  179  f.,  229  f.,  278,  289, 

293  ff- 
Satire  Menippee,  La,  169. 


334 


INDEX 


Scenes  from  Clerical  Life,  88. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  46,  49. 

Scourge  of  Villainy,  The,  12,  17. 

Seneca,  169. 

Sense  and  Sensibility,  246,  303. 

Seven  Satires,  9. 

Shakespeare,  William,  39,  49,  67  n., 

73  n.,  286. 
Shaving  of  Shagpat,   The,  63  n.,  78, 

80,  81,  307  n. 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  ii  n.,  65  n.,  71,  78,  228, 

SIS- 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  49,  51  n.,  171,  177. 
Sherman,  S.  P.,  287. 
Ship  of  Fools,  The,  21  n. 
Shirley,  50,  131,  180,  184,  198,  203, 

210  f. 

Sidgwick,  Henry,  18. 
Silas  Marner,  203,  253,  291. 
Sir  Harry  Hotspur,  209. 
Skelton,  John,  21  n.,  48,  169,  301. 
Sketches  and  Travels,  272. 
Small  House  at  Ellington,  The,  217  n. 
Smollett,  Tobias,  48,  in,  126,  193. 
Socrates,  59. 

Southey,  Robert,  59,  171,  173,  177. 
Spectator,  The,  No.  451,  176. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  48. 
Spingarn,  J.  E.,  4. 
Steele,  Richard,  127. 
Steele  Glas,  The,  25. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  43,  123. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  49,  89,  in. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  3iof.,  313. 
Swift,   Jonathan,  4,  9  n.,   22  n.,  48, 

70,  128,  145,  200,  204,  280. 
Sybil,  136,  189,  194  n.,  195,  198,  210, 

306. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  15,  124. 

Taine,  H.  A.,  n  n.,  23,  27,  272  n., 

273,  278. 
Tale  of  Two  Cities  A,  88,  244. 


Tancred,  135  f.,  170,  194,  225. 
Task,  The,  17  n.,  18,  33. 
Tatlock,  J.  S.  P.,  122  n. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  35,  48,  313. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  46,  48,  50,  51  n., 
53,  61,  62,  77,  78,  79,  81,  82,  92  f., 

116,  130,  148,  157,  169,  170,  174  f., 
183,  187,  189,  191,  205,  206,  209, 
217,    219,    231,    235,    240,    243  n., 
244,  245,  247,  249,  251,  256,  258, 
270,  272,  273,  278,  289,  285,  286, 
306,  309. 

Thirlwall,  Connop,  121. 

Thorndike,  A.  H.,  44  f. 

Tom  Jones,  9,  25,  37  n.,  78. 

Tragic  Comedians,  The,  162. 

Traill,  H.  D.,  191. 

Transcripts  and  Studies,  191. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  46,  48,  51,  52,  66, 
84,  89  f.,  92,  117,  130,  157,  174, 
183,  187,  190,  191,  198,  202  f.,  207, 

209,    219,    221,    222,    231,    235,    237, 

240,  243n.,  244,  245,  256,  260,  263, 

270,  271,  273,  276,  278,  279,  285, 
287, 302, 307, 309. 

Trueborn  Englishman,  The,  12  n.,  17, 

22. 

Twain,  Mark,  48,  76. 
Twelfth  Night,  78. 
Two  Years  Ago,  248  n.,  252  n. 

Universal  Passion,  The,  1 8,  33,  Son. 
Unsocial  Socialist,  An,  II  n. 
Up  to  Midnight,  246  n. 
Utopia,  68. 

Van  Doren,  Carl,  67  n. 

Van  Laun,  H.,  169. 

Vanity  Fair,  78,  88,  92  f.,  101,  149, 

175,  183,  286. 
Victoria,  Queen,  67. 
Victorian,  42,  43,  44,  45,  61,  84,  112, 

117,  129,  170,  180,  226,  230,  231, 


INDEX 


335 


239. 259,  272,  274,  277,  286,  287, 
296, 306, 310, 311, 315, 316. 

Victorians,  The,  61,  158,  179,  180, 
191,  203,  217,  227,  228,  270,  274, 
275,  287,  288,  295,  304,  306,  313, 

314,315. 

Villette,  211  f.,  2 1 8,  260. 
Virgil,  49. 

Virginians,  The,  311. 
Fittoria,  98,  155,  282  n. 
Voltaire,  38  n.,  48,  301. 
Voyage   of  Captain   Popanilla,    They 

62  n.,  74,  8 1,  189,  194  n.,  202. 

Walker,  Hugh,  67  n.,  78  n. 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  191  n. 
Warden,  The,  207,  209  f.,  222. 
Way  of  All  Flesh,  The,  65  n.,  68, 147  f., 
215  n.,  218. 


Way  We  Live  Now,  The,  240  f.,  263  f. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  73,  315. 

Wendell,  Barrett,  29  n. 

What  Will  He  Do  with  It?,  91  f.,  112  f., 

272. 

Wit,  59,  83,  86,  nof. 
Wives  and  Daughters,  112,  131,  249. 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  169. 
Wordsworth,  William,  49,  171. 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  48. 
Wyclif,  John,  49- 

Yeast,  132,   186,  213  n.,  221,  236  n., 

260,  298  f.,  299. 
Yellowplush  Papers,  The,  62  n.,  79, 

103,  174- 

Yonge,  Charlotte,  46. 
Young  Duke,  The,  134  f.,  189,  198  n. 
Young,  Edward,  9,  18,  33,  49,  80  n. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


VITA 

Frances  Theresa  Russell  was  born  in  Iowa  in  1873,  and  in 
1895  received  the  degree  of  Ph.  B.  from  the  State  University. 
The  year  of  1898-99  was  spent  in  graduate  study  at  Rad- 
cliffe,  her  major  subject  up  to  this  time  being  Latin. 

In  1900  she  married  Dr.  Frank  Russell,  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Ethnology  of  Harvard  University,  and  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life  was  engaged  in  the  study  of  Anthro- 
pology. 

In  1906  she  became  assistant  in  Philosophy  at  the  Leland 
Stanford  Junior  University,  and  in  1907,  assistant  in  Eng- 
lish. She  was  appointed  Instructor  in  the  English  Depart- 
ment in  1908,  and  Assistant  Professor  in  1916.  For  the 
"*next  two  years  she  was  registered  as  a  graduate  student  in 
the  English  Department  of  Columbia  University,  and  in 
1919  resumed  her  work  at  Stanford  University,  California. 


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